Days Gone By
by Chameleon2
Summary: The pilgrimage of Braska, Auron and Jecht, starting at the point that Jecht is made into an Aeon by Yunalesca. Following chapter will relate the fight against Sin, Auron's fight with Yunalesca, and his plans of getting to the modern Zanarkan
1. Default Chapter

Okay everybody! Like so many others I am crazy about Auron, and I wanted to have fling at his and Jecht's and Braska's pilgrimage. While, of course, it's fun to start at the beginning, too many people start there and never reach the end, so I decided to begin with Jecht becoming the final Aeon, then go through the fight with Sin and Auron's subsequent fight with Yunalesca and death, and, if I can, his plans to travel though Jecht (aka Sin) to the Modern Zanarkand and his meeting up with Tidus and his mom. By the way, does anybody know the name of Tidus's mom, or isn't her name mentioned?

Anyway, I hope you'll like it. Please, please comment!

DAYS GONE BY

1.

 As they entered the stadium, Jecht tapped Braska on the shoulder.

"Hey, Braska."

"Hm?"

"You don't have to do this." Braska smiled.

"Thank you for your concern." He kept on walking, using his staff to flick rubble out of his way. Jecht shrugged.

"Fine," he growled, throwing up his hands, "I said my piece." 

"Well, I haven't!" Auron halted and waited until the other men had caught up with him. He took a deep breath and pleaded, "Lord Braska, let us go back!" He nervously pulled a few strands of hair from his lips. The breeze kept blowing his hair in his face. "Please, my lord…I don't want to see you...die." Braska sighed. His fingers briefly touched the younger man's bare arm, the one clenching the grip of his sword. 

"You knew this was to happen, my friend." he said softly. His friend pressed his lips together to a thin, pale line.

"Yes, but I..." He looked at Braska's head ornament, at the wall, everywhere but the man's face. "I cannot accept it." Braska laughed, a warm, easy chuckle. It was the first stress-free sound all three men had heard that day, and Jecht gazed him with something that came very close to awe. _It's so easy to forget that this man has more courage than the both of us,_ Jecht thought, studying the slender man in front of him. _Sure, we've got brawn, and I'd like to think we've got some brains too, but Braska…He's got spirit. Without him, we'd have long gone back._ And yet, Auron, who had been pushing for speed from the outset of the journey, now finally had reached the point where his heart caught up with his brain, and realised that he WOULD lose his best friend, and that no matter what happened afterwards, whether peace would truly come, or Sin would return, Braska would be gone. In front of his Lord and his hard-begotten friend from another age, Auron's composure was melting, no matter how hard he tried to keep it intact. Braska shook his head, his smile softening, but not disappearing. Once again he touched his guardian's arm, squeezed the muscled shoulder with his slender fingers.                        

"Auron," he started. "I am honoured that you care for me so. But I have come to kill grief itself. I will defeat Sin, and lift the veil of sorrow covering Spira." His fingers buried in the younger man's flesh. "Please understand, Auron." Auron, as meekly as Jecht had ever seen him, nodded, once.

"I know…my Lord. But it's…" The other wagged his finger in front of his nose.

"Now, now, you will not sway me with your eloquence, Auron!" Jecht snorted, startled into mirth by this unexpected reply. Auron smiled as well, but it was little more than a quirk of the corner of his mouth.

"Let us go, then, my Lord," he said softly. "Before my eloquence chances to attempt to sway you again." He turned brusquely, and strode towards the stairs at the end of the stadium. Jecht and Braska followed.

"It's weird, really," Jecht thought aloud. "To see this place like this. It's almost impossible to understand that it's really Zanarkand…my Zanarkand. So destroyed. Hell, I used to walk here every day, when I was younger and still played from the Abes full-time. That dead end over there? That was the cafeteria. I used to take Tidus there and buy him ice creams…" his voice trailed off. Even better than when he first saw the ruins of Zanarkand, he realised how far away from home he actually was. 

"Braska?" The man's clear green-blue eyes flashed up to him from the half-dark—almost the same colour as the pyreflies drifting to the ceiling.

"Yes, Jecht?"

"If we've beaten Sin…it won't change anything, right?" His words were cryptic, but the Summoner seemed to understand immediately. He shook his head, twirling his staff between his hands.

"I wish I could say that you are wrong, but…no. It won't change anything."

"I won't be able to go back."

"Were you still hoping that you could?" Jecht kicked a piece of stone to the side.

"Well," he smirked, "I guess I can get quite stubborn when I've got something in my mind, you know? But," he sighed, "yes. I was still hoping I could get back. Through Sin, like I came. I don't know. But somehow, walking here…It may look like superstition, but I don't think I can go back to MY Zanarkand now that I've seen yours." He flexed his shoulders as if to throw something off his back. "So. Auron'll have to take care of that, now." Braska made an inquiring noise, but Jecht gave him a friendly pat on the back and followed the other Guardian up the stairs. 

"Not so many fiends in this place, huh?" Jecht said, looking around. "Though there seem to be an awful lot of these pyrethings, as you call them."

"We call them pyre_flies_, actually," Auron automatically corrected with his usual irritability, but his heart didn't seem into it. "This is the end of the Dome."

"Are the Trials ahead?" This time Braska took the lead.

"Probably." The man yanked at his hair in desperation. Jecht did not particularly enjoy figuring the way through the Cloisters. Metaphysical thinking and sphere testing weren't high on his list of favourite things to do. Then again, even Braska almost lost his patience in Macalania Temple, and his patience Jecht considered legendary. Strangely enough it had been Auron who had found the way, travelling the platforms with their machina origins as often and easily as a child on the moving stairs in Jecht's Zanarkand. However, the idea alone of another set of Trials like that had Jecht bristling like an angry cat.                      

"Here too, huh? Gimme a break." he exclaimed, and then, accusing, "I was expecting, you know, parades and...fireworks! You said there would be great parties when we got here. I got the sphere to prove it."                         

"If you trace your memory, you will remember that I said that they would hold parades after we came back." Braska chided. "You can ask for them after I defeat Sin."

"Let's go," Auron snarled hoarsely, and all but ran into the first chamber of Trials.

Compared to the last two Cloisters, the Trials were childishly simple. It took them less than ten minutes to form the required figures on the floor, and the platform to the hall of the Final Summoning rose from the depths of gliph-enlightened darkness.

"The final Aeon," Braska whispered, looking wide-eyed at the platform. "Finally." Then he shook himself and turned to his companions.

"Auron. Jecht. You must wait here while I receive the final Aeon. I'll be with you as soon as possible. Wait here." He hastily performed the sign of prayer, more out of habit than anything else, and stepped onto the elevator. "Wait here!" Beneath his feet, the gliph came to life, and he slowly descended, leaving his two mismatched Guardians standing at the edge of the shaft.

"He's pretty excited about that Final Aeon thing, isn't he?" Jecht murmured aloud. Auron nodded.

"You have seen what an Aeon can do. Valefor is reputed to be one of the weaker Aeons, and you've seen how easily it beat that Keeper. Imagine, the Aeon of all Aeons, the strongest Aeon of all…it must be enormous." He fingered his sword. "Though I must say I find this lack of response worrisome…" At that moment Braska's voice floated up from below. The distance robbed it from most of its warm, light timbre, but even now Auron thought he detected an unusual clipped quality.

"Auron…would you come down?" 

A few moments the three of them were standing in the Chamber of the Fayth, looking down on the statue that should have held the Final Aeon.                                             

"Huh?" Jecht asked stupidly. "What do you mean no Final Aeon?" Braska tapped his staff against the statue's head in a gesture as close to disrespect as Jecht had ever seen.

"This statue, it isn't a fayth, just an empty statue. It holds no power." And with a sudden savage sweep of his clenched fist, "without a fayth, I cannot obtain the Aeon!"

"Wait a moment," Auron laid a calming hand on his friend's arm. "This must be some mistake. The Aeon should be here. Perhaps this is the wrong Chamber. Perhaps…" He stopped, and his hand flashed for his sword as he detected a movement behind him, but Braska pushed him aside.

"Wait. It's the unsent from the entrance of the Dome." 

"How do you know…" But he closed his mouth as the old man passed through the wall that had one moment before sealed the passage way that now blinked through the shimmering field of the wall. 

"That statue lost its power as a fayth long ago." The man said, pointing at the fayth's shape.

"It is Lord Zaon, the first fayth of the Final Summoning. What you see before you is all that remains of him." 

"Zaon?" Auron interrupted, surprised. "Lady Yunalesca's husband? This is Lord Zaon?"

"His shell, yes. Lord Zaon's soul has departed a long time ago."

"Wait a minute," Jecht said, with that waving movement of outstretched arms that Auron had always found so annoying, but which now seemed to reflect his own feelings quite appropriately, "What you're saying, actually comes down on the fact that there is no Final Aeon? Is that what you're saying? You mean we've come all this way for nothing?"

"Jecht." Braska admonished. The old man smiled.

"Fear not," he hushed, holding out a soothing hand to Jecht, who immediately took a step backwards, "Lady Yunalesca will show you the path. The Final Aeon will be yours." And specifically to Braska, "The summoner and the Final Aeon will join powers." Turning around he made an inviting gesture at the shimmering wall. "She waits for you inside. Please, go in." 

"Thank you." The summoner bowed, and received the sign of prayer. "Auron, Jecht."

"I shall go first," Auron said. His friend smiled. No matter what happened, no matter where they were and who they were visiting, Auron would never change.

"Very well. Jecht, if you'd care to stay behind me…?" The man nodded. A shiver past along his frame, leaving his skin pebbled with goose bumps. "Are you afraid?"

"Me? Afraid?" he laughed, just a little too loudly. "Nah. It's all these damn pyrethings. They suck all the warmth from this place. I shoulda kept my cloak when we entered Zanarkand." He gazed at Auron's perfectly straight, red-clad back, briefly wondering whether the other Guardian felt as uneasy as he did, then gave the summoner a little push.

"I'm fine. Let's go, before Auron starts hitting on this Yunalesca-babe inside." Braska let out an uncontrollable bark of laughter.

"I do not think you quite understand who Lady Yunalesca is, my friend. Or the nature of my youngest Guardian." Chuckling softly, he walked after Auron. "Although it might not at all be a bad thing if you're not suitably impressed." He flashed Jecht a wide grin before stepping through the barrier; the blue of his robes was vaguely visible even through the sparkling surface. As Jecht joined his Spiral friends, Braska looked as serious as Auron. They were standing in a large room that had been spared by the destruction. 

"So," he asked, "Where is this Lady?" Auron smirked.

"Resolved not to be impressed, Jecht?" He pointed his chin towards the staircase on the other side of the room. "There she comes." In the middle of the sentence, his voice became softer, as if here were afraid the woman would hear him. 

"Huh? All I see is pyre…Damn!" 

Pyreflies. The air was filled with their light. Even though their flight was soundless, their sheer quantity caused the whole room to hum and shimmer—rather as if they had suddenly entered a Blitzball sphere. From the middle of the cloud of pyreflies, a woman's figure walked down the stairs. She seemed to float, merely grazing the steps with the tips of her bare toes as she descended. _Like an angel in the water,_ Jecht thought, awestruck. Yunalesca, whoever she was, was beautiful. She was clothed in little more than what Jecht identified as a bikini with a few trailing bits of gauze flowing from her hips, but her long, silver hair covered her like a cape, floating around her body in the breeze. When she spoke he actually started. Women this beautiful were not supposed to be able to speak.

"Welcome to Zanarkand." Her voice was low and musical. Auron and Braska bowed like marionettes, both going through the ritual of prayer, their hands moving in perfect unision.

"Lady Yunalesca."

"Lady." She chuckled, a kind of throaty chuckle that reminded the man from Zanarkand painfully of his own wife. _Not suitably impressed, eh? My girl laughs the same way, when she's in a flirty mood. Maybe it's because I don't know your history, lady, but for all I care you're still a woman._ Nevertheless he took care to bow too, be it not as gracefully. 

"Rise, summoner, Guardians. I congratulate you for completing your pilgrimage. Not many have reached my abode these past years…and even fewer have been able to leave it." Auron stiffened. Braska shot him a meaningful look.

_Keep your mouth shut!_ Auron frowned.

_She's threatening us, my Lord! Can't you see?_ But he clenched his jaws together and said nothing. Jecht, standing near him, could feel the tension radiate off him like heat from a campfire. _What is it you feel, Auron? Why are you so jumpy about this chick?_

"I will now bestow you with that which you seek," Yunalesca went on. Her eyes, Auron noticed, were as red as those of a fiend. Somehow, he did not trust her at all. She was supposed to be the holiest of holy, but her smile seemed cruel, and her eyes were hooded. He had to suppress the urge to shield Braska's body with his own, to keep from grabbing his arms and drag him away from this woman. _It's a trap. Yevon, it's a more intricate trap than I've ever thought…_

"The Final Summoning will be yours." She closed her eyes and smiled serenely, and for a moment her face was as peacefully beautiful as those of the many statues Auron had seen of her. He relaxed a little. _Yes. Give us the Final Aeon. Give us…_

"Please, make your choice." Braska raised his eyebrows.

"Excuse me?" His voice, as always, was calm, but Auron breathed in sharply, face paling with sudden realization even before she replied.

"Choose the one whom I will change to become the fayth of the Final Summoning." 

"What?!" Jecht exclaimed, and heard Auron groan like an echo. _What the hell…? _But Yunalesca brushed his disrespect away like a fly, explaining with tape-recorder-like patience, "There must be a bond, between chosen and summoner, for that is what the Final Summoning embodies: the bond between husband and wife, mother and child, or," she gestured at Jecht and Auron, "between friends." Her red eyes focussed on Auron, pinning him to the ground. "If that bond is strong enough," she continued meaningfully, "its light will conquer Sin." She looked away, and Auron staggered a little. Small drops of sweat beaded on his forehead. 

"A thousand years ago," Yunalesca went on dreamily, "I chose my husband Zaon as my fayth. Our bond was true, and I obtained the Final Aeon. We defeated Sin, and were victorious." Again she turned to Auron, whose face had regained a little colour. "There really is nothing to fear, Guardian. You and your summoner will soon be freed of worry and pain. For once you call forth the Final Aeon, your life will end. Death is the ultimate and final liberation." This time even Jecht noticed the cold, unfeeling quality of her features, and he realized with a shock what Braska and Auron had known from the start: Yunalesca was dead, just like the woman that had attacked Braska in Bevelle and later again on Mount Gazaget—_because she got away because he had to take care of me and he couldn't send her._ _Hell, she's a human fiend. A holy fiend! She may look human, act human, wear her name like a legend, but she's completely devoid of compassion._ And with a look at Auron, _He can't handle that. He won't be able to go on with this._

Yunalesca snapped her fingers. Apparently he hadn't been the only one whose attention had wavered.

"Choose," she said. "Come and see me when you have chosen. I will be waiting for you." She turned and drifted back up the stairs. Soon all that was left were the clouds of pyreflies, slowly dissipating the air.

"Hot damn," Jecht muttered, and wiped his face. He was surprised to find his hand wet with perspiration. _Now this is a bitch you shouldn't cross!_ He shot a look at Braska. The summoner looked composed as usual, but his eyes were helpless. _He hadn't expected this either,_ Jecht understood, and his heart ached for both of his friends. For Braska, because he had to sacrifice so much more than he had imagined, and for Auron, because he was so visibly falling apart in the face of losing his best friend. At that moment he made his decision. Whatever would happen, he knew what to do. And he would do it. 

"It is not too late." Auron's voice sounded strained but determined. His eyes were flickering feverishly in his pale face. "We still have a choice. Let us turn back!"  Braska sighed. He pushed back his heavy head-ornament and combed his fingers through his hair.                   

"If I turn back, who will defeat Sin?" he asked tiredly. "Would you have some other summoner and his guardians go through this?"

"But...my lord, there must be another way!" _I cannot do this. I cannot go through with this. I can't bear to see you die…_Jecht though he could almost hear the words, even though it was his own imagination that supplied them. He knew it was the truth. Auron could not go on, and Braska, no matter his resolve, could not do it on his own. So that left him. 

"This is the only way we got now!" He gave Auron his roughest glare. "She wants a fayth? Fine. Make me the fayth." And when neither man said anything, he went on, "you see, I been doing some thinking. My dream is back in the other Zanarkand. I wanted to make that runt into a star blitz player. Show him the view from the top, you know." A shrug. "But now I know there's no way home for me. I'm never going to see him again. My dream's never gonna come true." He smiled to take the sadness out of his words. Braska tentatively smiled back, understanding and grateful and accepting. _Damn_, _I love this man._ "Make me the fayth, Braska. I'll fight Sin with you. Maybe my life will have meaning that way, you know." Auron stared at him, eyes wide with growing panic.

"No!" he cried. "Don't do this, Jecht! If you live…" he shook his head. "There may be another way! We'll think of something, I know!" His friend combed his hair out of his face, shocked his shoulders and began to walk towards the staircase. 

"Believe me," he said over his shoulder, "I thought this through. Besides, I ain't getting any younger, so I might as well make myself useful."

"Jecht." He shut his eyes as the summoner called his name, suddenly afraid that he had been wrong, that Braska wouldn't let him go. If he were forced to reconsider, he wasn't sure he would be able to make this decision again.

"What! You're not gonna try to stop me, too, are you?" Braska hid his hands in his sleeves.

 "Sorry," he muttered, "I mean…thank you." Auron said nothing, but his face was blank with shock. _Damn, the kid looks as if he's about to faint on the spot. _It suddenly occurred to him that Auron was precisely that, a kid. How old was he anyway? Twenty-three, twenty-four? Way too young to have been placed in such a situation. _The way he acts…he seems much older. But he's just a kid. _Jecht's rough voice softened as he spoke to the other Guardian, "Braska still has to fight Sin, Auron. Guard him well. Make sure he gets there." Then he turned abruptly, unable to keep looking at that shattered figure, and unwilling to find out whether he would cry or not. If there was one thing he didn't want to see, it was Auron cry. "Well," he said gruffly, "let's go." And he swiftly began to climb the stairs. The summoner, after a quick glance at Auron's face, walked after him.

"Lord Braska! Jecht!" _Please, Auron, give me a break._

"What do you want now?" Auron was standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up at them. Two bright red spots of colour were burning on his cheeks.

"Sin always comes back." he said. "It comes back after the Calm every time! The cycle will continue and your deaths will mean nothing!" Braska smiled down at him.__

"But there's always a chance it won't come back this time." His whole figure radiated confidence. "Don't you understand, Auron? There's always a chance. And no matter how slim, that chance makes it worth trying."

"But…"

"I understand what you're saying, Auron," Jecht added. "But I'll find a way to break the cycle." Auron's expression lifted.

"You have a plan?" Braska, too, looked up at him, his feathery eyebrows doing that weird dancing thing they always did when he was curious.

"Jecht?" 

"Trust me, I'll think of something." He laughed, a sunny, optimistic laugh, and quickly took the last few steps to the second landing. Braska followed him.

When the last slip of his robes had disappeared, Auron, at the foot of the stairs, thought a piece of his soul had disappeared with them. Suddenly his knees buckled, and he slammed down on the floor. _Braska! Jecht! Come back! Don't do it! There is no other way! You'll die, and I…oh Yevon, Braska, I don't want to see you die! I don't want to see you die…_For a moment he thought he would choke on the pain in his chest, and then he took a deep gasping breath, and breathing out he sobbed, and with that one sob the pain in his chest grew so sharp it forced tears out of his eyes. _Braska, my Lord…Jecht…I can't…_But then he shook himself. _Jecht. You are from another world, another age. You were never trained or fit to be a Guardian. Yet for all your drinking and bragging, you are so much better at it than me._ A bitter laugh crawled through the lump in his chest to his throat, escaped like a sob, but rendered him calmer, and he hastily scrubbed his eyes. _You told me I should guard my summoner well, and here I am, making him wait for me because I'm too cowardly to accept his decision._ He wiped his eyes a final time, unwittingly spreading dirt all over his face, and rolled to his feet. _I will guard you, Braska, my friend, and I will guard your back too, Jecht._ He thought as he bounded up the stairs._ I will not fail you again. If I can't stop you, I shall give you all the support I can give._

When he caught up with the other two men, who were still standing close to the stairs and quite suddenly began to walk towards the glittering figure of Yunalesca in the distance, his eyes were still puffy and his nose was red, with a black smear running from above his left eye across the bridge of his nose to the middle of his right cheek, but he returned Braska's apologetic smile with a nod.

"My Lord…forgive me. I did not mean to make you wait." Jecht smirked and slapped him on the back. 

"Never mind, Auron, we all have our bodily functions to take care of, right?" Auron managed a disapproving glare, and the other man had to bite his lip to keep from laughing aloud. _Nerves, okay, I know. But damn, he looks like a raccoon!_

"What's so funny," Auron said testily.

"Nothing, nothing."

"You have some dirt on your face," Braska said innocently. Then his face split in a wide grin, and he burst out laughing. Jecht followed promptly, bent double over his knees and guffawing helplessly while Auron forgot his grief and began to rub his face like a madman, flushed bright red with irritation and emotion.

"Trust you to turn this into a circus," he snapped furiously. But he had to laugh as well. _Here we stand, at the beginning of what is going to be the greatest tragedy of our lives, laughing our heads of. In front of Yunalesca._ He chuckled.

"I do not think the Lady Yunalesca approves," he said. Braska wiped his streaming eyes. Surely, the Lady was looking at them with a sour expression on her face.

"To hell with her," shrugged Jecht. "She's gonna turn me into an Aeon. I have the right to have a good laugh before I go." He touched Auron's –now clean- face with his knuckles. "A good final laugh at you." In the distance, Yunalesca began to tap her foot on the floor.

"The Lady awaits," Braska said. He pulled a serious face again, but every once in a second his mouth quirked up with mirth. "Let us go."

To be continued…

Tell me what you think! Chameleon@kitty-oosten.demon.nl or Chameleon@freeler.nl! 


	2. Days Gone By 2

Oops, forgot to give credit. FF X isn't mine, but Squaresoft's. Not meaning to infringe or making any profit, though I could sure use the money! I've made use of the FF X script, but did not completely follow it all the time. Right. In this chapter, Jecht notices little change after being turned into an Aeon, they suffer Yunalesca's hospitality and have dinner 

: ). On with part two!

2.

Braska was half-leaning, half sitting on the remains of a pillar, gazing down on his lap and drawing figures in the supple fabric of his robes. Auron stood in front of him, one hand on his katana, the other, unconsciously, kneading the edge of his sleeve. Both men were listening, straining and at the same time afraid to hear what they both expected to hear: screams of pain and anguish, as their friend's body was ripped apart by a magic more powerful than they both could fathom, and changed into a weapon of light and energy. But apart from the constant low humming that was the sound of Zanarkand, the tittering of mice and the far-away rumble of collapsing debris, all was silent. As silent as death. Every movement they made caused a deafening noise; even the stroking whisper of Braska's fingers over his garments rustled absurdly loud, and seemed to echo through the chamber. Auron's boots clicked on the floor as if he wore iron on his soles.

"My lord?" Braska looked up from his knees.

"Yes?" His voice was a whisper.

"Jecht…I'm." He paused. "I'm sorry. It should have been me." His friend blinked, then smiled.

"It's alright." Auron shook his head.

"No. It is not. I…it should have been me. I went along to protect you, and now I am finally tested…I refuse."

"It was not a question of refusing," Braska said softly. "Auron, I had never imagined that a situation like this one would ever come upon us. If I'd known…But no, I would have done the same. To do differently would be betraying myself." He held out his hand to Auron, and the younger man took it, feeling the fine, soft, fingers against his own callused palm. "And you, my friend, would have betrayed yourself by acting differently than you have done."

"By showing more courage, you mean?"

"Don't be so bitter. You have shown nothing but courage." The corner of his mouth quirked up, and his eyebrows went with it. "Courage, and stubbornness, and foolishness, and friendship. And pride. You would have made a terrible Aeon, Auron."

"My lord?"

"Oh hush! Sit down, you're making me dizzy with your constant pacing." The Guardian sat down at his feet, legs crossed, elbows leaning on his knees. His sword was poking against the back of his head, but he ignored it, ponderously looked up at Braska. The Summoner rolled his eyes.

"There is still place beside me, Auron."

"Why would I make a bad Aeon?" Auron asked, piqued against all odds. Braska chuckled. He resisted the temptation to run his fingers through his Guardian's messy hair, as he had done when the man had been a boy.

"Well, for once, you are much too obstinate. Imagine me calling on you to defeat Sin, and you saying, 'No my Lord, I will not have you exposing yourself to such a dangerous creature,' picking me up and carrying me away." Auron coloured.

"Braska…" The man's mouth softened.

"But seriously Auron, I would not have you as my Aeon. I need you as my Guardian."

"But why? Jecht would be just as effective as a Guardian—maybe even better than I am." Braska shook his head.

"Jecht is my friend, and I believe he has even grown to be your friend as well, and I like him and trust him absolutely, but he is as unfit to be a Guardian as you were to be a married man." Auron nodded, he could agree with that. Poor Ennalone would have had a lonely life if he had married her. "And apart from that…I think that Jecht thinks the same way about this as I do. You are still so young, Auron. Your life holds so much promise for the future."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Auron asked sharply. "You are only twelve years older than I am."

"That is not what I mean." He pulled the head dress down completely and placed it on his lap. His light blue hair was white in the pyrefly light. "What I mean is, that you still have a whole life before you. There is so much to live for…" Auron sprang to his feet.

"My Lord, that is nonsense! I have the least of the three of us! You've got little Yuna, Jecht's got Tidus and his wife…all I have is you."

"And the oaths you've taken." He smiled apologetically. "I heard you talk to Jecht, just before he approached Yunalesca. You promised him you'd take care of his son, didn't you? 

Do you know what that request implies, Auron? Do you understand what he told you by asking you to find Tidus? That he will not be able to do it himself. And that he trusts you to do it for him."

"I know, but…he could have done it himself…" Braska shook his head.

"Jecht was transported to Spira by Sin. It touched him, and brought him through time to this era. Do you remember the attack in Luca? We both thought he had gone crazy."

"He endangered everybody with his actions." A hint of anger sharpened the younger man's words. He and Jecht had stopped baiting each other ever after that incident in Bevelle, but the Luca disaster still irked him. Jecht's race for Sin had forced the other Guardian to leave Braska behind and get him back, in which he had finally succeeded, but not without getting bitten by Sin Spawn and having to carry Jecht back all the way because the man had been rendered unconscious by Sin's taint.

"But it was a test. A test to see whether it would happen again." Auron sat down next to the Summoner, drew up his legs and rested his chin on his knees.

"Whether he would return to Zanarkand?"

"I think so."

"But he did not return."

"No. And neither was he affected by Sin's poison. He was unconscious, but perfectly sane afterwards."

"So, if— and I still say _if_, one is sucked up and transported by Sin…it works only once."

"Yes." 

"So that's what he wants me to do. Travel Sin."

"If that is the only way, yes. Basically, all he asked you to do is watch over his son. Well, you've promised me to take care of Yuna." His eyes flickered. "You'll become quite the family man yet, Auron." The Guardian opened his mouth to reply, but before he had the chance, Yunalesca's voice drifted down the stairs.

"Come to me, Summoner. Link with your Aeon." Braska rose, put on his head dress.

"I must go."

"I will go with you."

"Certainly." 

Jecht was standing in a circle of light, Yunalesca's fingertips pressed against his forehead. He looked unharmed and unchanged, perhaps a bit fuzzy at the edges, but still himself.

"Wait here," the Summoner said. His friend nodded, and watched as the man entered the circle. 

"Take my place," the Lady commanded. "Feel his soul. Do your thing, Summoner, and do it well. If you fail now, you will both lose your life."

_Witch!_ Auron snarled silently. This time he met her red gaze head on, and stared back defiantly. _You won't scare me, Yunalesca. I know what you are. I know that you hate us, and hate the fact that you have to help us. You love your own hate, and that binds you to this place more securely than any chain would. You should have been sent— let yourself get sent ages ago._

Braska let out a small cry when his hands came into contact with his eldest Guardian; a flash of light sparked between him and Jecht, enveloped them both, then winked out. They were both glowing with the pyreflies that were floating around and through Jecht's body. 

_Jecht, the Fayth._ The lump manifested itself in his chest again, but he unhooked his sake cask and swallowed the lump with a mouthful of alcohol. Braska began to chant the prayer to Yevon. Even through the light, Auron could see Jecht's raised eyebrows. __

_A prayer for me, Braska?_ Then his eyes flicked to Yunalesca, who had begun to sing. The Hymn of the Fayth. 

*

_"What is that sound?" Auron rolled his eyes, amazed by the amount of things the man from Zanarkand did not know._

_"Don't tell me you don't know that either."_

_"Auron." Braska's tone was one of long-lasting patience._

_"It's the faith, singing." He pointed to the enormous pillar in the distance. "That's Djose Temple. The sound you hear is the song the Fayth of the temple is singing, the Hymn of the Fayth." _

_"It's beautiful." His voice was huskier than usual, and when Braska looked at him, he saw that his eyes were moist. The Summoner smiled. Jecht never ceased to surprise him._

_"It is, isn't it?"_

*  

Under his breath, Auron hummed along with the Hymn. _Yes,_ he thought, looking at his two friends standing in an embrace that had little to do with physical contact and was yet closer than the most intimate touch, _I will keep my promise to the both of you. _Jecht's request had both honoured and moved him.

*

"Um, Auron? Can I ask you one last favour?" Auron gave a soundless nod, but Jecht suddenly blushed and looked away again. "Nah, never mind."

"Out with it." The other man smirked.

_"Won't cut me any slack, will ya? Okay. Listen good. I want you to take care of my son. My son, in Zanarkand. I told you about him. Tidus. He's such a crybaby—he needs someone there to hold his hand, see?" His own eyes blinked a few times. "Take care of him, will you?" Auron frowned._

_"But how am I supposed to go to Zanarkand?"_

_"Hey! You said it yourself! There must be a way to get there, right?" He patted the other man on the shoulder. "You'll find it." Auron nodded, and for the first time in the last few days his chin came up all the way._

_"All right, I will. I give you my word. I'll take care of your son. I'll guard him with my life." Jecht nodded as well._

"Thanks, Auron, I knew I could count on you." And to Auron's surprise he laid both hands on his shoulders and gave him a short, hard hug. As he released him, Jecht cleared his throat and looked elsewhere. "You were always such a stiff, but that's what I liked about you."

*

Braska's prayer ended, and Yunalesca's voice echoed softly. The circle of light that surrounded Jecht and Braska suddenly winked out, and Braska collapsed against Jecht, who automatically caught him in his arms. In a second, Auron kneeled beside him to take the limp weight over.

"Hey, Braska!" Even his voice remained unchanged. "Auron, what's wrong with him?" The younger man carefully lowered Braska to the ground, tenderly removing the ornaments from head and throat and laying the staff beside him.

"He's all right. But he should rest."

"You should all rest," Yunalesca stated from where she was standing, a few metres away from them.

"No…I'm all right," Braska murmured. "It's only a spell of dizziness…"

"You should all rest," the Lady persisted. "Follow me." She turned and began to walk away, neither looking back nor caring whether they decided to follow her or not. Jecht arched his eyebrow.

"Something tells me we should do as she says." 

"Give me my staff," The Summoner struggled to regain his footing, finally climbing to his feet with Auron's help, "I can walk." He tottered dangerously, and both Jecht and Auron grabbed an arm to keep him straight. "Auron…Jecht…please! I'm fine!" 

"Yunalesca's getting impatient," Jecht informed no one in particular. "She's doing that foot-thing again. I think she might be getting pissed-off at us."

"Right." Auron took an even firmer hold of the Summoner's arm and began to walk. Jecht immediately followed. Braska, stumbling on buckling legs, had no choice but to go along.

Yunalesca gave the impression of being close to exasperation when they finally reached her. At least, that was what Jecht imagined, for her countenance was as serene and peaceful as it had always been.

"In here," she purred. "This room is still intact; all Summoners who come to see me rest here before continuing on their pilgrimage." The door opened at a slight push of her hand, and a surprisingly luxurious room stretched out in front of them. "Rest well. All your needs will be provided. There are bathing facilities, beds and several kinds of nourishments. You can stay here for as long as you like, but do keep in mind that Spira is suffering—and you have the means to end that suffering." She nodded at Braska, who nodded back weakly. Released by his Guardians, he was propped up against the wall, using his staff to keep from falling sideways.

"I thank you," he said, and lifted his arms to perform the sign of prayer. Yunalesca stopped him with a touch on his head.

"Rest well, Summoner. May your strength grow in the sight of Sin. Yevon be praised." She made the gesture herself, bowing her head to each man in turn. "Guardian. Aeon. Be strong." Then she turned around in a flurry of hair and gauze and walked away.

"Right," Jecht said with a lopsided smile. "Let's see whether they've got something to eat over here, okay?"

A few minutes later Braska was fast asleep on the bed that was closest to the door, tucked in by the ever vigilant Auron; the Guardian himself sat next to Jecht at the table and tried to stop cramming food into his mouth like a three-year-old. The fact that Jecht seemed to be starved as well, and was hardly allowing himself the time to chew, wasn't much of a comfort to the fact that he couldn't control himself. The first thing he had learned in the temple was that food should be consumed in restricted quantities, at a slow, thorough pace. At the moment he was almost choking on a chunk of bread, and yet he was trying to stuff even more into his mouth. 

_I really should eat more slowly_, he thought absentmindedly, washing the bread away with a glass of wine. _It's undignified and boorish._ A large, thumb-thick slice of meat followed the bread, was swallowed and replaced with most of the contends of a bowl of vegetables. _Not to mention bad for the digestion._

In the next seven minutes he wolfed down three more slices of meat, a dozen parts of something that tasted like sweet potatoes, another half bread (Jecht wordlessly relieved him of the other half), two bowls of soup (for which he didn't even use a spoon but simply poured it into his glass and drank it like water), a piece of cake the size of his hand and four glasses of wine. 

When he was finally satiated, he leaned back in his chair, wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked at Jecht, who was still eating. _We are pigs!_ He was hunched over the table, elbows down on the wood, an enormous terrine of vegetable soup in his hands and slurping the soup right from the bowl.

"Jecht." At the sound of Auron's shocked voice, Jecht lowered the terrine.

"What?" Soup and vegetables dripped from his bearded chin and made greasy spots on the table. Some wisps of hair had escaped his headband and were now also sticky with soup; a flat round of carrot stuck to his left cheek. "What is it now?"

Auron began to giggle. He couldn't help it. _Yevon, behold the men who will save Spira!_ Precisely at that moment Braska gave a loud snore, and Auron burst into laughter.

"What?!" Jecht cried, slamming the bowl back on the table. The piece of carrot fell from his cheek and went 'ploop' into the remains of the soup. 

Auron began to howl with laughter. 

"Whuh? Something wrong?" Braska mumbled, sat up and, after swaying drunkenly on his bed, fell to the floor with a dull thump. 

Auron dropped his head on the table, hooting like an idiot, buried his face in his hands and wondered whether he would die of asphyxiation.

"Auron?" Jecht even began to sound worried. "Are you alright?" And to Braska, "I think he's having some kind of fit or something." Braska pushed himself back on the bed and let his eyebrows dance in reply.

"I don't think Auron ever had a fit."

"I…I…" was all Auron could bring out before collapsing in another fit of near-hysterical giggles.

"I think he's laughing." The Summoner chuckled himself. "Either that or he's choking." The Guardian in question lifted his head from the table and made a feeble attempt to wipe his streaming eyes.

"I'm…I'm fine." he hiccupped. Jecht looked at him with soup and wariness dripping down his chin.

"Damn," he said when Auron doubled up again, "You really are laughing. I didn't know you were capable of such a thing. You didn't even smile when that fiend tripped over that red butterfly and fell down the tree in that crystal forest…" More chortling from Auron, "…or when that Al Bhed guy found out Braska spoke his language fluently and asked what exactly a  'Cruubiv semg-tnehgehk, faent-ycc pmia-ryenat sunuh' was. Or…" The younger man beat his hand on the table.

"Stop…please stop…" Jecht eyed the empty flasks on the table and grinned. 

"Exactly how much wine did you drink, Auron? And how well do you usually handle it?"

"I don't think it's the wine," Braska thought aloud. He sank down on the third of the five chairs around the table. "I've seen him drunk only once, but he did not laugh, then."

"Figures," Jecht mused, shoving a plate with cold cuts in Braska's direction. "Stiff guy like him, doesn't seem the kind of man to go yodelling when he's had a few." Auron chuckled; Braska, at the thought of a yodelling Auron, sniggered as well. He fished a slice of ham from the plate and stuffed it wholly in his mouth.

"Cou you paff me fe bwead?"

"There…must be something…in the air here." Auron brought out haltingly. Tears were still running down his cheeks, no matter how hard he scrubbed his eyes. "Something that makes us…I don't know…"

"Ravenous?" Braska asked, stuffing his mouth with bread. "I mow I am."

"Something that weakens our self-control." Jecht shrugged, and sprayed soup.

"I haven't noticed anything. Okay, I'm pretty full now, but…"

"You don't have any self-control." Auron and Braska said in unison. Jecht threw up his hands.

"Hey! I never claimed I did!" Auron grinned.

"You still have soup in your beard."

"What?" He searched for a napkin, found none and wiped his face on the tablecloth. 

"I'm going to…die," Auron cried, dropped his head on the table and cracked up again.

"Do pass me the wine," Braska said.

*

Although they had all wanted to bathe before they went to bed, fatigue caught up with them. After dinner it was all they could do to stand up from the table and reach a bed before they fell asleep. Auron had wanted to keep watch, but he was simply unable to keep his eyes open, and before he could even take off his boots he was asleep. Jecht and Braska nodded off long before he did, the former still with a peace of parsley stuck to his chin.

The air, or maybe the wine…or the amount of pyreflies…or maybe just a spell of Yunalesca's…

They all slept without being woken by dreams or unfamiliar sounds, and while they slept the room was cleaned and the food was refreshed. Unsent and apparitions moved silently through the room, held their transparent fingers above each head and cast spells to keep them sleeping. Such were the Lady's commands: the guests should be rested, and therefore they were to be kept asleep until they were fully restored. Two days in this Chamber of Strength, and even the most ravaged Summoner would be able to face Sin.

Yunalesca herself appeared to look at them while they slept, and performed the gesture of prayer for each of them. 

"Be strong." Her words were soft but clinging, as if they were substantial. "Refresh the spiral. It has taken long enough—the people's hope is diminishing. Of all Summoners, Braska, you should succeed. Renew their hope, renew the spiral. Sacrifice yourself, and give up the man of the fayth." In his sleep, Jecht muttered something. Yunalesca pursed her lips. _I should never have made you an Aeon. You are too dangerous, too close already to the fayth…_Then she shrugged, and left the three men to their rest. If she had made a mistake, time would tell. First, they had to face Sin. When they had, she would know whether she had acted in accordance to her husband's wishes or not. Yunalesca wandered through the dead halls of the Dome, her way lit by thousands of pyreflies. She did not think she would be visited again, in the near future.

*

Auron opened his eyes to a white ceiling. There were no windows in this room, but his internal clock told him it was near noon. 

_Where…Yunalesca's room._ Sitting up, he noticed he still wore his clothes and even his boots. On the other side Jecht, also fully clothed, was lying on his back on another bed, his mouth wide open and his arms and legs flung about like a boy's. Braska was curled up around his staff on the bed near the door, without robes but still dressed in his travelling pants and boots._ We fell asleep before we could even undress,_ Auron thought. _Strange._ He rubbed his face and winced at the stubble. _Two days, I think. Did we sleep that long?_

_It does not matter. I need a bath and a shave._ Careful not to wake his companions he removed his boots, searched his gear for shaving utensils and entered the bathroom. He clicked his tongue. _Nice. I wonder whether this was the Blitzball players' bathing room._ Several baths large enough to hold three people were lined up on one side; on the other side a wide screen separated the showers from the rest of the room. On a small table at the back of the room he found a bunch of towels, another table sported several fresh cakes of soap. _No one would say that this place has been in ruins for the last thousand years. _He sniffed at one of the towels. It smelled as fresh as the soap. _Clean. Yunalesca takes good care of her visitors._ All the baths were filled with warm scented water. He stripped, hung up his coat and threw his shirt, pants and socks into a bath to soak, and experimented on how the showers worked. They had changed very little, these many years. 

            After he had shaved and washed, he scrubbed his clothes with soap, rinsed them out and hung them to dry in the back of the bathroom. It occurred to him that he had no idea where or when they would fight Sin. _It could take weeks before we finally find him, if he doesn't want to be found._ Somehow that thought cheered him up a bit. It was odd; he vaguely remembered being cheerful, of laughing so hard that his sides ached. Now, he could not imagined why he had laughed.

"Auron." Braska, his hair standing like fluff around his head, stepped into the room, yawning. The Guardian nodded his head in greeting. "Ah, our Lady has provided all our needs, just as she said." He looked at the clothes steaming in the tub, smiled and threw his own clothes into the next bath. "How long do you gather we've slept?"

"Two days at least, I think. Maybe longer." Braska nodded. He ducked his head beneath the shower, gasping a little at the cold water.

"I believe so too. It must have been something in either the food, the drink or the air. Or a spell, although I haven't felt any magical energy. Then again, I was hardly aware of anything." Auron smiled. _No, you were not, my Lord._

"How do you feel?" The Summoner's hazy figure brought its hand to its chin in thought.

"How do I feel? Hmm, interesting question. I feel fine. A bit…odd, as if…but no, I feel very well. And you?" Wrapped in a towel, he stepped from behind the screen. "You were awfully cheerful last night." Auron shrugged, colouring slightly.

"I feel fine as well. But, about last night…" Braska waved his apologies away.

"It was good to see you laugh. You should do it more often."

"My Lord…"

"He's right! You should…" Jecht entered the bathroom, took in the half-naked Summoner, the naked Auron, and their easy stance, and raised his eyebrows._ I'd never have thought that prude would converse in less than his coat 'n armour. Unless, of course, I interpreted their relationship the wrong way._ "I'm not…uh…interrupting something, am I?" Auron frowned.

"What could you interrupt? Or rather, what COULDN"T you interrupt? You always interrupt." And then suddenly noticing the way the man was looking at him, "What are you looking at?" Jecht shrugged.

"Nice scar." 

From just below his right shoulder a thick, pink scar ran all the way across Auron's chest, curving down an inch before his left nipple, and ending, much thinner, above his navel. In a world where magic could put you back on your feet if you had died within less than a quarter of an hour, the wound that had made a scar like that must have cut him almost in two.

"You have got a few of your own." Somehow, his remark had touched some sort of sore spot, for the dimple between his eyebrows was back, and his reply had been challenging, as if the other's words were an accusation. Jecht held up his hands.

"No offence meant, kiddo. It's just that a thing like that is hard to miss."

"Don't. Call me. Kiddo." _Well, it was too good to be true anyway,_ Jecht sighed as the younger man swept out of the bathroom. _Auron with a sense of humour. Aw hell, can't have it all, I guess._

"So, what did I do wrong this time?" he asked. Braska shrugged, and began to dry his hair.

"Nothing. He's just a bit sensitive about his scars."

"Because…?"

"That, my friend, is Auron's story. Although I would advise against asking him to tell about it. 

But enough of Auron. What about you? How do you feel? Is there any…change?" He dropped the towel and gazed at him with those impossible eyes. _Okay, I'm not familiar with their bathing habits._

"I feel just fine, Braska. Would you mind if I took a shower first, before discussing my mental and physical health?"

"Hm? Oh, no, of course not." He actually seemed a bit flustered. "I did not mean to keep you. It's just…I've never had a living fayth before. You cannot begrudge me some excitement."

"It's okay." He hastily took off his clothes, flung them into the nearest bath and retreated behind the screen. "I'll let you know as soon as I'm finished."

To Be Continued

And? And? Comments, please!


	3. Days Gone By 3

Well, here we are with part three. Jecht's experiences as a fayth, a lot of talk, and some healthy exercise. 

3.

When he came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and leaving a trail of drops on the floor, both Auron and Braska were clothed again; the former sitting cross-legged on the bed, combing his wet hair with brisk, uncaring strokes that bespoke that he was still irritated about the scar; the latter standing at the table, chewing a piece of bread. 

"Are you finished?" Braska's face had the same expression Tidus's face had, when he wanted to go to see the games. Jecht grinned.

"Let me put on my spare clothes, and I'm all yours, Summoner." Auron hmph-ed, and pulled his hair back in a ponytail so tight the corners of his eyes stretched towards his temples. _Well, I guess that's about all the emotion we're entitled to see,_ Jecht thought with a mental shrug. _A good cry and a fit of hysterics. I guess he's pulled himself back together now._ Yet he was relieved; somehow, Auron was a lot easier to understand when he was as he was now, than when he showed his feelings. As he turned around, the blitz-shorts the seamstresses in Besaid had so neatly copied for him secure around his waist and thighs, Braska was still looking at him.

"Okay," he sighed. "What d'ya wanna know?"

"How you feel. What you feel. What happened to you when Yunalesca took you away. I want to know everything. I…" the Summoner took a few hesitant steps towards, him, halted, then walked all the way over. "I want to touch you. Feel what you are. Your body. May I?"

_So that's why he didn't want to leave._ Jecht smiled nervously.

"If you want." The man's fingertips lightly touched his shoulders. For a fraction of a second, Jecht had the ridiculous idea that his fingers went through his skin, through all of his flesh, and touched the very core of him, and he gasped, but immediately after that the feeling was gone. Neither did it return when the fingers increased their pressure, skimmed down his arms, across his chest and back up, to his face. Braska's own face, a few inches beneath his, was serious, his feathery eyebrows knotted in concentration.

"You feel just like you…haven't changed. However, there is a strange quality to your aura…"

"My what?"

"Your aura. It used to be much smaller, almost nonexistent. Now, you're positively shining."

"Pregnant glow," Jecht muttered. Both the Summoner and the other Guardian stared at him, not understanding and not amused. Braska dropped his hand.

"I beg your pardon?" Jecht waved his hands.

"Doesn't matter. My joke. You don't get it. Never mind." He fled to the table and picked up a square piece of toast. "So, I have an aura. That's cool. Is there any butter? Ah, yes, there."

"Jecht!" The Summoner all but pouted.

"What?"

"I want to know…I need to know what happened to you."

"This is not the time to behave juvenilely." Auron added sternly. Jecht snorted—a habit he had picked up from Auron. Although he excelled at making the sound, he could still not put in the absolute contempt Auron could, and in the quiet hum of the only intact room in Zanarkand, it sounded a bit silly. He hastily crammed the toast in his mouth, chewed, and said, "Fine. You want to know my story? All right, I'll tell ya. She took me to a corner of the stadium…

Her arm bangles softly clinked against each other as Yunalesca pressed a hidden lever in the wall, and right in front of them, a wall dematerialised, just as the wall in the Chamber of the Fayth had done.

"In there." She gave Jecht a little push. The ground sloped gently downwards; he felt the strain of it in his calves as he walked. There were no lamps or torches to light the way—all light from outside disappeared once Yunalesca followed him into the passage way—yet he could see perfectly. The sense of being underwater was even stronger here, with the pyreflies rising from the Lady's body, and the strange humming sound that grew louder as they walked on.

_"What the hell happened here, anyway?" He asked aloud, not really expecting an answer. Surprisingly enough, Yunalesca replied._

_"Sin is what happened here. Death. Sacrifice. You do know the history of Zanarkand, do you not?"_

_"Sort of…"_

_"Sin came. He destroyed the city, and murdered the people. The few survivors decided to become the fayth."_

_"But that's not all, is it?" Jecht said sharply. "The fayth of Zanarkand…they didn't just become fayth like the ones we encountered in the temples. They dream…" Yunalesca's hand closed on his left bicep like a vice._

_"What are you saying? What do you know of the Dream of the Fayth?" _

_"They told me," he said, and stared straight into her eyes. They shone like rubies in the sun. "And they also told me that they want to stop dreaming."_

_"They are lying!" she said harshly._

_"Why should they be lying? I mean, I…"_

_"Of course they lie. They're influenced by Sin." She nudged his shoulder. "Keep walking."_

_"Sin influences the Fayth of Zanarkand?" He began to walk again, keeping an eye on the Lady over his shoulder. Whatever he had said, it severely disturbed her. "That's nonsense. Why would he do that?"_

_"Because he is Sin. An Aeon possessed by Yu Yevon. An Aeon devised to kill, blindly and mindlessly."_

_"But…" Something she said only now caught up with his mind. "Yu Yevon?"_

_"Listen to me, Jecht of Zanarkand! It is not your duty to understand. It is your duty to become a fayth and help your Summoner to fight and beat Sin." She steered him into a large room, where he had to squeeze his eyes almost shut to be able to see through the glare of what must be a million pyreflies. "You are not from here," she continued, "I know that that is true. I also know of the Dream of the Fayth, and that your existence is connected to that dream." Her delicate finger probed him painfully in the back. "You think that some heroic action will stop the dreaming of the fayth, but you better keep one thing in mind. If the fayth stop dreaming, your Zanarkand, and all that are living there in your memory will disappear. They will not die, or stop living; they will never have existed. Including your son and your wife. But you…after all that you have done on Spira, you have earned yourself some sort of existence apart from your dream-self. If they stop dreaming, you will fade, but not all of you. Are you really sure you want to stop the dream?" Jecht said nothing. He peeked through his lashes, shielding his face with his hands, and thought he could make out people._

_"But…what about Sin?" _

_"Kill Sin, and the fayth will stop rebelling. He will stop influencing them, and they will sink back into their slumber, and leave your Zanarkand alone. You need to become the Final Aeon to destroy him._

_'Now, step forward." He did as she told him, and let her turn him around. Even though his eyes watered, he tried to open them wider, and see what was around him, but all he could see was light, and vague shadows, and Yunalesca's unearthly body. "Now, back. A little more." His shoulders grazed the sides of what appeared to be a niche, and the Lady smiled. "May Yevon guide you, fayth, on your journey to the end of sorrow." She performed the sign of prayer and slammed him as hard as she could against the wall. A glyph—red, green, blue and white—flashed over him, through him, as his back hit stone. For one second, agony so ripping and terrible that it took his breath away crashed through him, robbing him of all his senses, then he gasped, and air flooded back into his lungs.  _

_"Heeey!" He voiced his surprise and his pain and anger in one, protesting cry, and then the light of the pyreflies blinded him, until he saw nothing but black._

"When I woke up," Jecht continued, rubbing an apple with his headband until it shone like Yunalesca's eyes, "I was still standing in that hidey-hole. I felt kinda dizzy and pissed-off, but the pain in my back was gone, and Yunalesca was standing there with that 'I am holier than thou' expression on her face, so I didn't say anything." He took a bite, chewed thoughtfully for a while. "And I could see. I couldn't, when I came in, but now I could."

"The pyreflies were gone?"

"N-no, I don't think so. I just…I could ignore them. They still lit up the place, but they didn't blind me anymore. 

'The room was filled with people—no live people, but statues, like those of the fayth in the temples. But they were all human, not changed in any way. All human, and there must have been hundreds."

"They must be the statues of all the Guardians who turned into fayth to become the Final Aeon," Braska mused. "Did you…have you looked back? To see whether your statue was there too?" Jecht made that shrugging, defensive motion.

"Look back? Man, I was terrified. I didn't wanna look back to see whether I'd turned to stone as well! No, I didn't look back, but Yunalesca said that I was now officially a fayth, so I guess she gave me all the conviction I needed."

"But you didn't feel different? More powerful? Ethereal?" Jecht knocked his fist on the table.

"Do I look ethereal? I felt different in the beginning, because I was confused and just a little bit freaked out, but really, fundamentally different? Nah. Not really. Only when she took me back and you began praying to me, then I felt…odd. Like you were tying my soul to yours."

"Praying to the fayth," Auron whispered. "Obtaining the Aeon." He pulled his pony tail a bit looser. "So you really are a fayth now."

"I guess."

"The Final Aeon."

"You know, I really don't get all that fayth-Aeon-unsent stuff. That Aeon, is it in me, or am I the Aeon?"

"You are a fayth. You, or rather an aspect of you will turn into an Aeon when I pray for that aspect to aid me."

"And that aspect resides on the Farplane?" 

"Yes."

"So, I'm dead." Braska arched his eyebrows.

"You're a fayth. That's something entirely different."

"Aahg." Jecht shook his head. "I'll never understand." The other man smiled.

"You don't need to understand to help me, and that, you do, Jecht." He turned to Auron, who gazed back with flat, chestnut eyes. "With a fayth like that and a Guardian like you, how could we not defeat Sin?" Auron looked away.

"I'll go and get our clothes. They should be dry by now." He stood up and walked away, leaving the Summoner and his fayth standing near the table, casting questioning looks at each other. 

They stayed for one more night, polishing weapons and cleaning and mending their travel-worn clothes. Braska used his Al Bhed knowledge to add another offensive spell to Jecht's sword, rendering it almost as deadly as Auron's blade, and managed to weave another spell through the slits of his glove, "To make sure nothing will harm you. I should take good care of my new fayth—even better care than I took with my Guardian." He did a similar thing with Auron's bracers, humming softly all the time. He seemed to be in excellent spirits.

            When they left, the Dome was silent and dead, without a single hint of the presence of a living or at least sentient being.

"Too bad. I'd have liked to ask the Lady a few more questions," Jecht said. Braska shrugged.

"She obviously doesn't want to see us. Let us go."

"Whereto, my lord?" At that, the Summoner was silent for a while, then shrugged.

"The last time we came close to Sin, he was near Bevelle. That's a good enough start for now."

"So we'll return to the Calm Lands." A nod. "Good. I'll lead." He swung his sword across his shoulder, hastened his step and walked in front of them. Braska followed him with his eyes, and sighed.

"Jecht. Are you coming?"

"Sure." He fell into pace besides the Summoner. "So. We just try to find Sin?" 

"Yes. He never resides in the same place. Well, you've seen so for yourself. Basically we trace the path of destruction to where he is at that moment, and pray to Yevon that he floats near a sea or a plane, so that when we bring him down, he doesn't destroy everything in his death throes." He gave a little jerk when a roaring, metallic cry ripped the silence apart, but held Jecht back when the man would have hastened forward to aid Auron. "No. Let him fight. If he needs help, he'll call us."

"Auron?" In the distance he though he could make out the gleam of rampant machina, and a flash of red that was the Guardian. "He wouldn't call for help if it killed him!" Braska smiled, a faint, tight little smile.

"In that, you are wrong, my friend. Auron may be stubborn and unforthcoming, but he would not needlessly endanger himself. If he did so, he would endanger me as well, and that would make him a bad Guardian. No, he will be alright, and if he needs us, he will yell. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't hasten our steps, of course." Despite his own words he was running now, his feet tapping lightly on the cracked pavement. However, when they caught up with Auron, all that was left of the machina was a smoking heap of dull metal and quivering springs. Auron himself stood in the middle of the pile of severed wheels and arms, panting a little and with an oily smear on his chin, but bright-eyed and brimming with energy.

"Jecht! You're late."

"I didn't want to spoil your fun." He grinned, and the other grinned back, temporarily smoothening the dimple between his eyebrows. He wiped his chin, then used the same hand to point to Mount Gagazet in the distance.

"A dark sky above the mountain. There'll be a storm raging there, now. The first of a Storming Season, I expect. We should make haste if we want to cross the mountain; in a few days we won't be able to." Braska clenched his fist.

"I'd totally forgotten! Yes, we should hurry. Damn it, if I'd only remembered, I wouldn't have stayed another day at the Dome." Immediately he began to walk faster. "Stupid! It was the last thing on my mind." 

"What does that mean, the Storming Season? I mean, I _know_ it means that it will storm," he growled, as Auron looked at him with a smirk, "But…"

"It's not actually a season," Braska explained. "And it isn't the same as winter or monsoon. A Storm Season occurs over Mount Gagazet when Spira is at a certain angle with the Single moon and the Red star. It creates a high pressure air field on one side of the mountain, while a low pressure air pocket grows on the other side of the mountain. Because of the Red star, that air is suddenly enabled to stream through the lower parts of the mountain range, and collides with the high pressure field. The result: storms." He sighed again. "It happens every few years, and apparently this is one of those years. I totally forgot."

"The Ronso said something about a storm being underway," Jecht remembered guiltily. "But I thought it was just an ordinary storm, and I didn't think about it when we passed without trouble."

"It doesn't matter. With a little luck we won't even see the storm. As long as the clouds are pitch black and unlit by lightning, we'll be fine. If we do get caught in the middle of it…well, our tents are sturdy, and I can conjure fire even without wood, so apart from a few day's delay we'll be fine as well." Nevertheless his face was serious as he gazed at the mountains, and Jecht could not suppress a shiver when he studied the clouds. _That was the colour of the sky on the day that Sin took me…_

To Be Continued

Again, please leave a review! If you've already done so, Thanks! Next chapter, Stormy Weather, more talk, and memories. I like Flashbacks, and they enable me to retell earlier parts of the journey.


	4. Days GOne By 4

Hello everyone! Thanks for the reviews! At the moment I have a lot of spare time (just finished my studies and got my degree!! Yay!) and no job yet, so I've got a lot of time to write. So…here is part 4 of…I don't know yet. twiddles thumbs More reviews would certainly inspire me…whistles But even if I won't get anymore, I'll keep writing for now. 

Okay, in this chapter snowy walks, flashbacks to the use of an Aeon, and Braska getting high on summoning : ) Hey, the man's GOTTA have some sort of oddity, right?

4.

"Why," Jecht sputtered after the fifth wave of machina, "are there so many of these things around here? I thought they were all destroyed during the war." Auron gave his famous snort.

"Well, they obviously aren't. Why do you think they all went into the mountains? Nobody's here to destroy them—except for us—and if the cold damages them it's less than the moist air of Zanarkand." Jecht blinked at him sweetly.

"Auron, you do know that water is molten snow, do you?" Auron opened his mouth to reply, but a gust of wind almost blew him down, and his words disappeared in the storm. Braska grabbed his arm, both to steady him and to ask his attention.

"This doesn't work. The wind will blow us away if we go over the ridge now. We'll have to make camp and wait until the morning."

"But, my Lord, what if the wind doesn't diminish? At least now we can still move forwards." Braska looked doubtful. He walked in Jecht's and Auron's footsteps, sheltered, if slightly, by their bodies, but still his breath came in shallow gasps and his face and hands were flayed red by wind and snowflakes. But he nodded.

"If you can keep it up."

"I can." 

They moved on against the ever stronger growing storm, covering their mouths and noses with their collars and scarves, squinting to keep the snow out of their eyes. Although it had not started to snow yet, the wind blew up the snow from the ground and the rocks, sent it stinging against every uncovered body-part, and weighed down limbs as it settled on their clothes.

"Hell!" Jecht screamed at one part. "This is undoable! I can't see a bloody thing! We've got to stop!" Auron shook his head.

"Not yet!" He pulled Jecht closer so he wouldn't have to shout so hard and pointed at a dark mass in the distance. "See that thing over there? It's one of those Summoner Memorials. I want to reach that point before nightfall. We can rest there. The stone will shelter us and provide a good support for the tent as well. If we were to make camp here, we'd blow away before we'd gotten all the ropes attached."

"Auron! Fiends!" Braska's voice broke on the last syllable. They were all hoarse from shouting over the storm, and after all the summoning he had done since they had left Zanarkand he could produce no more than a whisper.

"To his left," Auron snapped immediately, and a few seconds later they had taken their positions and whipped out their weapons. It was a short fight and no one got hurt, but it left Braska gasping on his knees and the Guardians hunched panting over their swords.

"I'm…sorry. Just give me…a moment," the Summoner got out haltingly. "I'm not…used to this kind of…physical exercise." He laughed breathlessly, then began to cough. Auron automatically moved his body so that it was shielding his friend's.

"Can you go on, my Lord? I wanted to go to Kilian's Memorial before halting, but if you cannot go…" Braska held up his hand.

"I'm just a bit tired, Auron. That's all. Give me a moment and I'll follow you to the gates of the Farplane."

"That's not funny," Jecht said, with a look at Auron's suddenly frozen features, but Braska smiled sadly and whispered, "It's not supposed to be funny."

"Can't we call an Aeon, like we did when we were on the other side of the mountain, and fly back?" Braska stumbled back to his feet, brushed the snow from his knees. It didn't help much; they were all soaked through to mid-thigh.

"Not with this storm. Even Bahamut would lose his way here. Besides, I've asked enough of them already. I don't want them to think we're too weak to handle Gagazet on our own." He gave Jecht a meaningful look. "They might come to despise me and desert us. I don't want that." 

"No shit." And here he was thinking that obtaining and Aeon was for life. But then, he still made mistakes in this world. _Like becoming an Aeon myself._ Though that did not feel like a mistake. If something, it made him feel proud of himself.

"Come on," Auron said. "Just a little bit farther. We can make it in an hour, if we move on quickly." He waited for Braska's nod, inclined his head and began his struggle against the wind and the snow once more, creating a path for the others.

"Right," Jecht said to himself, and trudged after him.

It was not one, but three hours later when they had finally reached the memorial, and again half an hour later when they had finally gotten up the tent. Auron had been right; without the shelter of the stone they would never have succeeded. As it was, the canvas was quivering beneath the force of the wind, and one side was already heavy with snow. Braska gazed at it worriedly.

"I do hope the wind will lie down a bit tomorrow. Otherwise we'll be stuck here for at least another day, if not a week." Jecht cracked his fingers.

"Ah well. That'd give us some time to practice, wouldn't it?" Braska arched his eyebrows.

"Practice what, Jecht?"

"Well," He tried to crack his fingers once more, but all he did was hurt them. "Me. My…Aeon, or whatever. Me giving you the Aeon. I've never been a fayth before, and you said you'd never had a living fayth before, so…I thought maybe we should practice." Braska shook his head.

"You never do think before you ask something, do you, Jecht," he said, but there was humour in his voice.

"What d'ya mean?" The Summoner reached out and briefly touched his face. Again he felt that strange, deeper-than-skin sensation, then it was gone again.

"I already got your Aeon. You gave it to me in Zanarkand." He pulled back and began to rummage in his backpack. "That is, I asked and asked and asked, and finally you gave your permission." He handed him a bar of dried corn, rye and honey and smiled. "Believe it or not, but you were the hardest Aeon I ever acquired." Jecht blinked.

"I can't remember anything of that! When did you ask?"

"In Zanarkand. In the great room, where Yunalesca conjured the circle of light."

"But…you weren't asking me anything. You were praying!"

"To you. And to the part that would—could—give me the part of you that will be the Aeon." He took a bite himself, and nudged Jecht to do the same. Auron, at the same time, was busy preparing the rest of dinner, and kept quiet. "I am not surprised you cannot remember giving me the Aeon. It is not something you, or a fayth, does consciously. It's more of a…an agreement. A convention of trust. If the fayth finds me capable, it will give me the Aeon. If not…well, you've seen what happened in Kilika. Apparently," and now he smiled brightly, "you approved of me, and thought me worthy. Even subconsciously." Jecht worried his lower lip.

"Maybe so…but still. I don't know how to be an Aeon. Are you sure we shouldn't test whether I can really do it?" Auron sighed, and pushed an apple into his hand.

"Why don't you eat and shut up?"

"What's your problem!?" Auron drew himself up as far as the tent allowed it.

"What's my problem? You are! Don't you ever think? Do you even listen when we answer your endless questions? "Why shouldn't we practice?" indeed!"

"Auron," Braska hushed. "It's not his fault he doesn't understand. I should have been clearer when I explained the Final Summoning.

"Thank you," he added, and accepted a glass of wine. He took a sip, then handed it to Jecht.

"Summoning Aeons takes energy. It's like…well, as if your soul is torn out of your body and then forcefully slammed in again. But then your soul is not yours alone anymore, it is the soul of the Aeon as well. All its strength, its powers, is all yours. You feel every move it makes—because it is you, and you are it." He smiled dreamily and just a little bit sensuously, which made Jecht wonder why exactly Summoners were so eager to give their life. _I guess they're all a bit addicted to summoning, and to the feeling it arouses._ He looked again at Braska's expression and thought that 'arouses' was probably a very apt word for the situation.

"And when it leaves, something leaves you as well," Braska went on softly, "almost as if a part of your body suddenly goes numb, dead.

'I love summoning," he suddenly addressed Jecht directly, "loved it from the very moment I received my first Aeon, almost twenty years ago. It almost destroyed me, that love, for I would summon her so often that I depleted my own energy. I knew I wanted to be a High Summoner even before I saw Sin or what he did to Spira—and when I finally did see him, almost died because of him, I swore I would be the one that killed him. Even though that would kill me as well." He nodded at Jecht. "The Final Summoning will kill me. Summoning you, your Aeon, will take all the energy I have, and it will leave me dead. And that is why we cannot practice. I can only summon you once, and that will have to be enough to defeat him, and otherwise…well, let's not be negative. I'm quite sure that we will vanquish Sin." He took another healthy bite and sat munching quietly for a while, listening to the storm whistling outside. Auron's whisper sounded like a lament.

"My Lord…" Braska smiled.

"Don't look so downcast. You know I'll be more than happy if I can die in such a way. Imagine," the dreamy look came back, "Dying without having to let go of the Aeon. For you will live, Jecht. Don't be afraid of that. You'll be fine. A fayth, yes, but a living fayth with a purpose, so you won't fade away…Unless you'd prefer to give yourself up and go to the Farplane, of course…" Jecht shivered.

"Could we please talk about something else? This subject's giving me the creeps." For once, Auron seemed to agree with him.

"What do you want to talk about? And don't say…"

"Blitzball."

"Blitzball." He snorted. "I really don't see why you like it so much. It's so infantile."

"Says the old and wizened warrior."

"But it is! Swimming with a ball and kicking it into a goal. I did that when I was twelve, and then I quitted."

"Which is a shame, because I'm sure that you'd be great at it if you tried." Auron goggled.

"Is that a compliment?" Jecht looked flustered. _Damn! Gotta watch my words!_

"Well, uh, no. You'd be great if you tried, but now you're way too slow. You'd keep everybody up."

"I would not!"

"Yes, you would! Besides, you're a lousy catch. You'd drop the ball whenever someone threw it at you."

"I would not!"

"You are falling into repetition," Braska interjected smoothly. "And I am afraid I'll have to concur with Jecht; your forte isn't Blitzball. Then again, I'd like to see you," a look at Jecht, "recite the complete rites of Yevon without making a single mistake. Or battle twenty lesser fiends with a blindfold covering your eyes."

"Ha." Auron said, mock-superior. Jecht grinned, and threw up his hands.

"Fine, fine. You win. Unless the rites of Yevon count five pages. 'Cause then I can do that too."

"Sixty-seven," Auron said morosely. "and not pages, but scrolls. It took me four years to learn them all by heart. And it takes the better part of a sunny afternoon to recite them all." The other Guardian whistled.

"No shit."

"No." Again a silence fell, but this time it was a companionable silence, in which they simply sat and ate and enjoyed each other's company without speaking. 

"Hey Braska,"

"Yes?"

"Why is it that your hair is blue?"

"My hair? I don't know. My mother's hair was blue as well, though not as light as mine; she had dark blue hair, almost black." He pulled out a strand of his hair and idly curled it around his finger. In the half-dark of the tent and the flickering light of a sun sphere it looked a light purple. "But she was born during a Storming Season, and so was I, now I think of it, so maybe that influences the colour of your hair. Or perhaps it's Guado blood, although I can't remember any intermarriages besides Jiskal's and Wineve's. Who knows. My ancestors could have been Guadoes." He yawned. "Why? Fancy a lock to keep in a medal?" Jecht grinned.

"Nah. I was just wondering whether you'd dyed it." Braska groaned.

"You wondered whether I'd dyed it? Jecht, your insolence is such that I should have ordered you flayed a long time ago. Men do not dye their hair. At least I don't." he chuckled. "Imagine a priest of Yevon running around with dyed hair and red lips."

"There are more than enough of those running around," Auron said sleepily. He studied his friends through the fringe of his lashes, not bothering to open his eyes all the way. "This Donna twerp we ran into in Bevelle had great inspirations to become a Summoner, but her lips were so red she looked like she'd been drinking tomato juice."

"How observant of you," Jecht mused. "I didn't even notice her. But then she was a bit young for me."

"Jecht, she wasn't fifteen yet." A remote kind of horror was audible in Auron's voice, but he was too tired to rise to the challenge.

"Like I said, a bit young for _me_." The other Guardian snorted, and closed his eyes completely. Braska smiled.

"Tired?"

"Mm."

"Sleep for a while. As long as it's snowing like this no fiend will try to attack us—even if they could find us in our tent. I don't think we're visible even to the trained eye. And since you'll be the one to do the most work tomorrow, and have done the most today, you've earned your rest." Auron gave a barely perceptive nod, curled up into a small ball around his sword and buried his face in his sleeves. Within a few minutes he was sound asleep.

"It must be wonderful to be able to sleep anywhere you like," Jecht thought aloud. Braska nodded.

"Yes…though he wasn't like that when he was young. Then again, nobody can sleep when ordered when they are young. I still cannot do that. But if you train all day and exhaust yourself to dropping, and then go on until someone tells you that you can rest an hour, you learn to sleep every spare minute you have, wherever you are, sitting, lying or standing up. He can sleep standing up, you know!" The admiration for this outstanding feat was apparent in his words, and once again Jecht was aware of the friendship between these two men, a bond that was almost the same yet fundamentally different than the one he'd had with Lynn. _Love, that's what it is. Nothing physical, although they are perfectly at ease with that as well, but a love that consists of absolute trust, care and friendship. And Auron places Braska on a pedestal to keep a certain distance, perhaps because Braska is of a better family than he is, but even though he calls him Lord, they have the same standing, be it that Braska's older, and Auron's a stubborn and relatively inexperienced._ Suddenly he felt left out, not because they treated him like an outsider—which Braska had never done, and Auron had ceased doing since they left Bevelle—but because he would never be able to be what they were to either one of them, and because that left him lonely, even more so because he did like their company.

"You've know him for a long time, haven't you?" Braska shrugged.

"Yes, and no. I met him for the first time when he was born. His mother was having difficulties birthing, and I was the only acolyte in the neighbourhood who could heal, so they called me to assist her. I was but a child, then, and it was only years later that I found out that Auron was that baby I helped being born." He smiled. 

'But I met him again, and became friends with him, um…Eight years ago, when I came to visit the Bevelle temple. But I was married then, and they sent me away. We met again four years later, when I returned to Bevelle for good after Ditto passed away, and tried to pick up where I'd left."

"Ditto?"

"My wife. My Al Bhed wife. Yuna's mother. She died in a sand storm on Bikanel Island—but that is not important, at least not for my friendship with Auron. Although…I had fallen because I'd married an Al Bhed, and two years later Auron fell into disgrace because he refused to marry Ennalone, so in effect my marriage to Ditto did influence circumstances." He sighed. "Marriage can make or break you, if you're connected to the Church of Yevon. Cid always did find that ridiculous, but then his views on the world are totally different than most people's."

"Cid? Who's Cid, or am I not supposed to ask?"

"You mean, would Auron frown at you and tell you to mind your own business?" Braska laughed softly. "Oh yes, he would. But I don't mind telling you. He is my brother-in-law, Ditto's brother."

"So he's an Al Bhed too."

"Yes. A very prototype of his kind. A difficult man—gruff, rude, a good heart but a nasty prickly exterior. He almost killed me when he found out I'd been dating Ditto. It took a whole lot of persuasion and Ditto with a frying pan before he…came to his senses." Jecht grinned.

"Sounds like an interesting person."

"Oh, he is. Although I cannot say I'm very sorry I don't see him often. Though it would have been nice for Yuna if he'd been around at this time. He has a daughter, a year younger than Yuna, little Rikku; the girls'd love to be together, and especially now I've gone…" He fell silent. Auron muttered something in his sleep, flexed his fingers around the hilt of his sword. Jecht looked at him, idly wondering how it was possible that such a big man could curl himself up into such a small ball—he liked to sprawl, and couldn't possibly sleep in such a position.

"Are you tired?"

"What? Me? Well, a bit, but…"

"Sleep. I have some components to sort out yet, and you should rest up to regain your strength. Tomorrow will be another hard, tiresome day."

"And you'll be sitting in a comfy chair in a hot room watching us plough through the snow?" Braska smiled.

"Something like that. I'll be walking in your footsteps. Now be quiet and go to sleep." Jecht arched his eyebrows.

"Yes sir, Summoner sir!" He leaned back on his elbows, into his backpack, and pulled his cloak, found on the ledge of the same fountain where he had left it, more securely around his shoulders.

"Good." Braska said, and began to dig into his bag. He looked up twice, met blinking eyes the first time, and closed eyes the second time. When he was sure Jecht was asleep, he upturned the whole bag and sifted through the contents on his lap. Potions, elixirs and gems clinked against each other as he sorted them out, and when he was done he counted them beneath his breath.

_Enough to last us through the mountains, if my strength came to fail me here, but we are short on antidotes. I'm not sure that I can make another warming potion with the ingredients I have either…and especially Jecht will be having difficulties without its effects. All the more in this horrible weather. _Listening, he could make out the everlasting howl of the wind, but the pitter-patter of snow and hail on canvas had stopped—but that was probably because they were covered with such a thick layer of snow that it did not make a sound anymore. _If the weather doesn't improve in a few days I'll have no other choice than to call upon an Aeon to carry us over the mountains. But they won't like that. Bahamut is too proud to carry any of us, let alone the three of us. Valefor wouldn't mind, but she's not strong enough. Besides, we'd have to go to a peak if we want to get over the storm, and that's virtually impossible…No, we'll have to do it on our own._ Auron's left foot twitched and kicked him against the ankle.

"Leave…alone!" he mumbled from behind his cloak. Braska's features softened.

"Let it go, Auron," he said softly. "You're safe here, and I am too."

"Whuh?" the Guardian said groggily, but the Summoner shook his head.

"Go back to sleep. You were dreaming. I'll keep watch for the moment."

"Right…" He sighed, and was silent. Braska went back to his potions, and thought about using Ifrit again.

*

Three weeks earlier 

They had been ascending Mount Gagazet for two days, leaving even the plumes of Ronso cook fires behind, when the trouble began. Exactly fifteen days later Braska, standing at the foot of the mountains on the other side, remembered that that should have alerted him on the fact that nature was about to go wild—but at that moment neither of them had even thought about a Storming Season; they only thought about continuing their way, and the waves upon waves of fiends had been blamed on Ronso activities and had simply been fought and defeated.

"Is it always like this over here?" Jecht panted after the seventh flaming fiend in as many minutes. Auron shrugged.

"Could be. I was very young when I came here last. Cannot remember much of it."

"I have never been here before," Braska apologised. "But I must say I haven't seen so many living so concentrated…Auron! To your left!" Auron turned and slashed, and a flight of pyreflies passed along Jecht's face.

"I wonder whether things would improve if I performed a sending…" Auron rubbed blackish blood from his sword with a handful of snow.

"I doubt it, my Lord. They'd just shy away, then come back later." He fastened his steps, scouting out ahead of them, then came running back. _The man's like a dog,_ Jecht thought to himself. _Covers twice the distance we do and still has enough energy to bark._ He chuckled.

"What?" Auron asked.

"Nothing. See anything?"

"Of course I saw anything. The whole place is crawling with fiends. Bashuras, Mandragoras, Grats, Imps, you name it; and machinas scuttling in the middle of them. It looks like a whole party down there." He flashed an unexpected grin. "It does cheer up the countryside." 

"Is it passable?" He shrugged.

"If we go slow and run at the right times? Yes. We'll have to be careful, though. They seem to team up in groups of four or five. If they succeed in flanking us, or worse, separate us, we might have a problem. But," and now he took on a pose that Jecht would have sworn was macho if it hadn't been Auron, "if you," to Jecht, "just do as I say and you, my Lord, keep back a little we'll go through them like a knife through hot butter." Jecht cupped his hand around one ear.

"What's that? Did I just hear a boast?" Auron frowned, piqued. 

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing, nothing." The other man snorted, and balanced his sword on his shoulder.

"Hmph. Just do as I say, alright. And I do mean DO as I say, because otherwise things might end less than fortunate for you." Jecht performed the victory sign.

"As you say, oh lord and master."

"Fine. Let's go. Are you ready, my Lord?" Braska nodded.

"All set." 

"Good," He turned. "I'll take the lead. Jecht, stay close to Braska. Watch out for the mechs, lest they attack you from behind, but ignore them if they…"

"I've fought them before, Auron." The other Guardian shrugged.

"Then follow me and keep quiet. It would greatly improve our situation if we'd be able to surprise them." Jecht bit back a reply that Auron was the one who had been talking non-stop for the last few minutes, and that he didn't usually have any breath left to make any sound—somehow, Blitzball didn't wear him out half as much as this trudging through the snow and fighting fiends at a great height—and just followed him, keeping close to the Summoner.

            They managed to surprise the first few fiends and dealt with them easily, but then they were alerted, and when they did not charge, the fiends tried to lie in ambushes and attack them when they were least aware. Bahamut roared his challenge two times, Auron kept casting spells that enhanced his and Jecht's expeditiousness and Jecht, well, Jecht finally learned to appreciate all the times both men had been hammering on his studying of the ways of magic and his meagre spell collection. He did not like magic, although it did increase his might—he considered it unnecessary and unnatural, but at times like these he was immensely glad he could gather his and his companions' energy from the air and increase their defence, and cast the odd speed spell as well. 

There were several types of fiends he had never seen before, of which the bird-like creatures were least dangerous, and the four-armed beasts Auron called Bashuras were most irritating. One reason for this unpleasantness was the hardness of the thing's fists, the second was the fact that Braska gave a little cry of delight whenever he spotted one, and proceeded to sneak towards the Bashura and rob it blind. After which it inevitably noticed them and attacked.

"Would you cut that out?" Jecht sputtered after the third time an all too solid fist the size of a ham had connected with his face. "These things're nasty!"

"They carry ingredients I need to brew a potion," the Summoner replied cheerfully, and twirled his staff between his fingers before straightening and healing Jecht's broken nose. "Besides, you two can handle them. And if you can't, I can always call on Yevon's servants, can't I?" 

Braska, Jecht had already noticed, was in uncommonly high spirits. The more often he had to summon an Aeon, the more jovial he became, until he stood next to Bahamut or Ixion humming excitedly and shouting, "Go! Go for it! Kill it!" Which was something even Auron had never seen him do. 

"Braska!" he shouted at one moment, when they sought a brief respite beneath an overhanging ledge, "Are you all right?" 

"Never better!" Auron silently begged to differ. His friend's usually pale face was flushed almost feverishly, and his eyes glittered abnormally bright. He almost looked…

_High._ Jecht thought, and when he caught Auron's eye, he knew the other man thought the same. _He's high as a bat. I couldn't get more intoxicated after downing a gallon of wine than he apparently gets on summoning._ And suddenly he wondered whether Summoners could get dangerous to themselves and their direct environment when they lost self-control. 

"Look after him," Auron told Jecht, and the man nodded.

"I don't need looking after," Braska pouted, and Auron rolled his eyes.

"Of course not, my Lord. But we don't want you to exhaust yourself. Jecht," He pointed two fingers at his eyes and moved on.

"I will." He took the Summoner by one of his wide sleeves, but Braska pulled himself free.

"I am perfectly capable of handling myself, thank you. I am no child and…"

"Jecht! Braska! Ambush!" Auron came skidding back through the snow, slipped, landed on his knees and scrambled back up again. "Four of them!" 

"Which ones?"

"Bashuras."

"All of them?" Jecht squeaked.

"Yes. Back to that ridge; if they manage to corner us... Go on, run! Braska, please! Run!" For one moment Jecht was afraid that the Summoner would refuse, but either Auron's authority was even more impressive than he had given it credit for, or Braska could still think remotely sane, because he gave a nod and began to retreat immediately. 

Running, Jecht beat away several smaller fiends, stumbled and was hauled up again by Braska. 

"Watch it! Cover me so I can summon!"

"I don't know whether that's such a good idea." 

"Stop babbling," Auron snapped as they reached the ledge. "We can't possibly handle them on our own. There's the first one. Jecht, guard him. I'll take them on." The first fiend was followed on his heels by two others, and the fourth one came running as well. Auron ran a few steps forwards, took on the opening position and raised his sword. Behind him, Braska began to chant again. The first Bashura crashed head first into Auron, sent him flying to the ground. The two others split up to flank each other and attack the Summoner, but were beat back by the other Guardian.

"I can't summon like this!" Braska shouted as he dodged a blow. "I need more space!"

"Working on it! Auron! I need some help here!" He heard a dull roar and the hum of pyreflies, and a few seconds later the man's red-clad body, hazy with speed, bounded into his vision field.

"I'm here. It's got its fists up. Go!" Jecht attacked, but he no more than scratched the creature, and its retaliation sent a red-hot bolt of agony through his upper arm. 

"_Damn_ it!" He tried to hold on to his sword, but his arm couldn't react, and it dropped into the snow. Beside him, Auron cursed, colourfully and inventive. 

"Get back! Let him heal you!" He evaded one blow, then grunted as he received another. His empty sleeve flapped against his back as he danced back and forth between the two fiends, struck here, slashed there, ducked and dodged, fell back and attacked again. But his breath came in rasping gasps, and both fiends were still standing.

"Braska!" The Summoner nodded.

"Your arm will have to wait." He closed his eyes and began to chant, relying entirely on his Guardians to keep the fiends away from him. "Yevon, ruler of all, grant me strength through your fayth; Aeon, aid me in my cause. Ifrit, lend me your…" One of the Bashuras exploded in a cloud of light, and Auron spun to confront the third, when the fourth one charged from the left and crashed all four fists against his side.

"Auron! Watch out!" But it was too late, and the Guardian slammed against the ledge with a sickening crunch and fell to the ground, where he lay unmoving, his mouth half open, eyes shut in agony. "_Auron_!"

"IFRIT!" Braska screamed, and then the ledge quivered under the force of the Aeon's arrival. "Help us!"

"Braska!"

"Not now! Later!"

"But he'll die!"

"If I don't concentrate, we'll all die!" He was right, Jecht knew he was right, but nevertheless he was shocked. Leaving the Summoner to steer his Aeon he hastened towards where Auron lay and flopped down next to him, cursing as he jarred his broken arm. Already Ifrit's heat caused the snow to melt; the knees of his pants were soaked.

"Auron? Can you hear me?" The man gave a tiny nod. He was breathing oddly, very fast and shallowly, making a whole train of small clouds in the air. "Braska'll take care of you in no time. He finally got the Aeon to come down. I think…"

"Finished." Braska pushed him out of the way and kneeled next to him. The Aeon had not left yet, and was breathing hot air on their backs. "Can you sit up?" Auron moved a fraction of a centimetre, moaned and shook his head.

"No. I think I…cracked a rib…or two."

"Open your eyes." He did so, and the Summoner examined his pupils and reaction. "All right. Now, are you wounded elsewhere, or only your chest?"

"Not only…my chest. Side. Back as well." He paused to pant for air. Despite the cold, sweat rolled down his face. Braska bit his lip.

"Right." He pulled off his gloves with his teeth and spat them out. "All right, this may hurt a bit, and my hands are cold, but you'll just have to endure." He deftly unbuttoned Auron's coat, unhooked his belt and slid his hands up beneath his shirt. Auron gasped and dug his fingers into the ground.

"Oww…"

"I'm sorry." Eyes closed, he felt his way up and to the side, pressed his lips together. Auron began to cough, his body convulsing weakly as he tried to keep as still as he could. A small trail of blood ran from his mouth and dripped to the melting ground. "NO! Try to keep still! Don't cough." He shrugged his backpack from his shoulders. "I'll give you something to ease the pain and a sleeping draught so we can move you.

'Jecht, could you hand me your bag as well? I left my sleeping powder in the front most pocket."

"Sure. You mean this?"

"Yes." He bent over Auron and set a small flask against his lips. "Here, drink this. Slowly. That's it. Now for the draught—I'll mix it with wine, then it'll be stronger…"

"Braska."

"Yes?"

"How are you…going to move me? Can't you just…" another pause for breath, "heal me here?" Jecht looked enquiring as well. The Summoner shook his head.

"Auron, I need facilities to heal you. This isn't just a broken bone or a flesh wound. Half of your ribs are caved in, and by the looks of it at least one of the bones has punctured your lungs. It'll take at least three or four hours to set them, and I need you to sit up straight for that, preferably secured…no, we'll have to go back to the Ronso village and take care of you there."

"Ronso village?!" He began to cough again. "But it has taken us…days to get…here!"

"Don't speak. I know it has taken us days, but…well, we haven't got a choice, do we? We cannot go on to Zanarkand with no assurance that we'll find a village soon, and I don't want to lose you simply because you don't want to go back."

"But how do we get back?" Jecht asked. "I mean, he can't walk. And I can't carry him—especially with my arm broken." Braska slapped his forehead.

"Ah, yes, your arm. I apologise. Let me see…no, it's a rather clean break. Hold on." He took Jecht's arm between both hands, closed his eyes and began to pray. A soft blue light played over bruised flesh, and with a soft 'click' the bone mended, and settled. "There. That should do it. Flex your fingers…yes. 

'Now, as for transporting you, and us, back to Ronso Village, I have an idea. It's rather unconventional, but then so is our current situation." He looked back, and as Jecht followed his gaze, he stared right into Ifrit's fiery eyes.

"Huh?" he brought out. "You don't mean…" Braska smiled, tiredly. The high colour had gone from his cheeks, and at the moment he seemed more tired than anything.

"Yes, I do mean Ifrit. He can carry us back. He won't like it, and he might even get angry, but since we have not other alternatives I think I'll take that risk." And when Jecht still looked doubtful, "Like you said, Auron cannot walk—even more, I don't even want him to move! We cannot carry him _and_ fight fiends at the same time, certainly not while trying to keep him immobile. So, we need Ifrit." 

"Ifrit." He gazed up at the massive fire Aeon and swallowed. "Sure, use an Aeon. But why not Valefor. She, at least, doesn't seem so…unstable." Ifrit growled softly, as in protest. Jecht hastily focussed on Braska again.

"Valefor cannot carry all three of us, and she has no hands, so she cannot lift Auron onto her back, and it would aggravate his injury if we had to drag him on top of her." He rolled to his feet and made a half-hearted attempt to brush the dirt and molten snow from his robes. Even though Ifrit's heat made the temperature more comfortable, it definitely did not improve the condition of the ground. "No, it will have to be Ifrit. Bahamut's too proud to even consider such a request, Ixion's movements are too jerky, Dragonfly has the same problems as Valefor, so…Ifrit." He walked towards the Aeon. "Besides, I'd like to keep him warm."

"I'm still here," Auron whispered sullenly. "You can still talk to me."

"Remind me to give you that potion then," the Summoner said over his shoulder, and then he turned his complete attention on the giant Aeon in front of him.

"Be still." Jecht whispered back. "I think this might be a pretty delicate situation. Let me get my sword in case things go wrong."

Things did not go wrong. Ifrit, although with a grumpy expression on his furry snout, agreed to carry them back to Ronso village. Braska mixed his sleeping draught, and Auron drank it obediently. His body seemed unpleasantly limp and small in Ifrit's huge claws as it carefully lifted him and placed him in the fur on its shoulders, where Braska, already seated, made sure that he would be kept immobile. Jecht sat on the left shoulder and tried to evade Ifrit's ear as it flicked back and forth when Braska talked to it.

"Can you remember where the village is?" Flick.

"So you will take us there?" Flick.

"Thank you. Then, whenever you are ready." Flick. Ifrit crouched down on all fours, tensed his legs and jumped.

To be continued


	5. Days Gone By 5

Hiyas! Here is part 5. I've decided on a way to explain the saving points and their ability to let you play Blitzball: I've made them some kind of transporters, straight to Luca. There's where the stadium is, right? So in my Spira those saving points—although not so numerously present as in the game—stand in every village, and they are something like a television ball/telephone/transporter, and are called Luca Spheres.  This chapter ends the flashback to the use of Ifrit. Next chapter will deal with the rest of the journey to find Sin. Enjoy!

5.

Ifrit's appearance caused a flurry of excitement and fear in the Ronso Village, but Braska hastily dismounted and explained matters, calming them down soon enough. They still were not all to happy to see them, and Jecht noticed more than one blue-furred person who seemed larger than he actually was because of raised hackles, but the Summoner smiled, thanked, offered gil and was finally directed to the inn and given a room.

Auron slept through it all, although he began to cough when Ifrit plucked him from his back and deposited him into the broad arms of a huge Ronso called Inorhe. His waxen colour and the blood dripping from his mouth proved more convincing than Braska's invocations of Yevon; the big feline's tail stopped trashing about, and his inner eyelids retreated. 

"Looks bad," he rumbled, and carried the Guardian inside with as much care as if it were a cub. Jecht followed a little more slowly, after a sideward glance at the Luca Sphere near the house of the Ronso Chief. It was flickering dully; apparently they had fixed it since they passed through.

_I wonder whether they're playing today_, he mused, then shook himself. _I should see if Braska needs me instead of dreaming about playing Blitzball._ However, when he came into the room Braska had already set the Ronso to work and was now deftly removing Auron's coat. The shirt beneath was stained with red here and there, and Jecht could not suppress a wince. _Bones sticking through skin…_

"Hey Braska?"

"Yes?"

"Can I help ya with anything?" The Summoner looked back over his shoulder.

"No, no I don't think so. Um. Why don't you…er…go outside for a bit? See if you can find something to mend your coat? And could you buy a cask of mint wine? The shop aught to have it." Auron began to cough again, and he hastened back to him again, holding him immobile while he coughed.

"Eh, sure." Suddenly, he felt a little helpless. "I'll check the Sphere as well—ya know, see if they play…"

"Sure, go ahead," Braska said without paying attention. "But be sure to behave considerately, though. You know they don't take friendly after humans who do not live up to their ideas of respect." And to Inorhe, "Can you lift him now, and keep him straight while I remove his shirt?"

"Okay," Jecht said to no one in particular, and walked out of the room, hands in his pockets.

Even though he had been prepared for the damage on his friend's body by the touch of his fingers, Braska still hissed with sympathy and pity when he cut Auron's shirt away. His chest was unharmed, but on his left his skin was a purplish black, and his ribs caved inwards on one point, breaking the skin on several places. As Inorhe kept him straight, he walked around him and examined his back and other side, and whistled. Auron had been lucky to hit the ledge with his right side, or his back would have been broken. As it was, his ribcage had not only broken on several places but had also somehow shifted a bit, and snapped his collar bone as well.

"Not good," the Ronso rumbled. "Breathing sounds hitchy. Guardian must have blood in lungs."

"I fear so, yes," Braska sighed. "I'll need to mend that first. And I need him to keep sitting up like this if I want to heal everything at the right pace." He looked at the high-posted bed and combed his hand through his hair, stopped as he came to his head ornament and took it off. "Right. I'll need ropes and a lot of pillows. And bandages. A few yards at least. Can you arrange that for me?" The feline nodded. He waited until the Summoner supported the Guardian instead of him and walked out of the door. 

Braska stroked Auron's pale cheek.

"You've really done it this time, my friend. It will take you at least a day to recover from this injury—and me the rest of THIS day to patch you up again. Pray to Yevon that Jecht won't provoke the Ronso into a fist-fight or something." Auron did not reply, and he frowned. Inorhe had been right; his respiration sounded awful, as if he were breathing liquid. He wondered whether it was a good idea to keep him sedated; the absence of pain was one thing, dying in one's sleep was another. _Well, I'll just have to monitor him carefully. I'll keep him asleep for as long as I dare, and wake him when I need him to speak._

The Ronso entered with a stack of ropes and bandages in one paw and four pillows beneath his other arm. In his one free hand he carried a cup of steaming liquid.

"Tea," he growled. "For the Summoner." Braska was touched.

"Thank you." Inorhe performed the sign of prayer as well as possible without the use of one's hands.

"Braska healed my cub. Brought me news from Kimahri. Tea is the least Inorhe can do for Braska." He propped up the pillows behind Auron's back and gently pushed the man into them. "Inorhe will help as much as the Summoner wants." Braska smiled.

"Thank you, Inorhe. And thank you for the tea. I really do appreciate it." The Ronso made a sound like a giant humming bee and looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

"Rrrr. It's nothing. How do you want him positioned?"

A little while later Auron sat straight on the bed, arms hoisted upwards by ropes, head drooping on his chest, broken ribs exposed to the whims of his Summoner. Blood dripped from his lower lip on his lap, and Braska cracked his fingers.

"First the lungs." He sat down on the bed and laid his hands on his friend's back and side, closed his eyes and began to pray. After a while Auron's body became visible behind his closed eyelids, but he probed deeper, until the flesh disappeared and he could see his skeleton and organs. "There. Two ribs on this side, one on the other side." His hands skimmed lightly over the injured parts, pressed here, caressed there, and the blue light of healing lit up the man's flesh, all the way to his lungs, making him look like some sort of transparent deep-ocean fish. Auron began to cough again, sounding more strangled than before, and Braska sped up his litany. 

"Yevon be praised aid your loyal servant grant me the power to heal the wounds caused by forces greater than me delay the final spiral Yevon aid me in my cause…" _There, gently now, I have to pull them out before I can mend his flesh…there, that's it, one more to go. Hold still now, Auron, don't move, you can cough the blood out later._ Beneath his fingers bones shifted back to their ordinary position, then began to knit. Lung tissue formed a scar, then became smooth and elastic once more, and immediately Auron breathed easier. Braska exhaled as well, and leaned back against the headboard with a sigh. His back ached from sitting in one position for too long; it always amazed him how fast time went when he healed someone, while it seemed such a short time to him.

"That's one. One more to go." He wiped his sweaty face with his sleeve and looked regretfully at the now stone cold cup of tea. "Ah well. Can't win them all." He took a sip, pulled a face, then emptied the cup anyway. As if on cue, Inorhe stalked into the room, a tea pot large enough to provide for a whole orphanage in his hand, and poured him a new cup.

"Hot tea much better than cold," he lectured, and would not go away before Braska had finished the second cup as well. "Need any help?" Braska shook his head.

"No, only when I let him down, later. But now, no, thank you. Um, did you happen to see Jecht?" The Ronso swiped his tail.

"Yes. Outside, talking to Sphere." He gave a sigh of relief.

"Oh, good. He's not bothering anybody, then." Pushing the hair out of his face, he placed the empty cup on the night stand. "I'd better get on with it before it gets dark. Thank you for the tea." Inorhe bowed, took the pot, and disappeared again. Braska went back to healing.

Auron woke up while Braska was knitting his collar bone back together. At first he did not know where he was, and why his arms and his sides hurt so much, but as soon as he identified the taste in his mouth as the salt tang of blood and the woozy feeling in his head as the after effects of a sleeping potion, he remembered what had happened.

His collar bone gave a soft clicking sound, and he winced as it fit into place. Braska looked up from his shoulder, saw his eyes and smiled.

"Awake? I'd hoped it'd last a bit longer, but it's good to see you awake again. No, don't speak yet. I haven't finished with this side yet—but you should feel a lot better already." Auron nodded, then winced again as his neck cramped up.

"Why…why're my arms tied up?" Braska shook his finger at him.

"I told you not to speak! And to answer your question, I've been dying to get you in a vulnerable position like this…" He made large eyes and licked his lips, and Auron leaned away from him a little. Dishevelled as he was, with his moist face and dark circles beneath his eyes, Braska looked less than trustworthy.

"My…Lord?" The less-than-trustworthy face split in a grin.

"Don't be an ass, Auron." He laughed. "I needed you secured like this so I could reach all of your ribs without having to lift your arms all the time. You're quite heavy, you know." He went back to his friend's ribs and chanted quietly for a while, until Auron asked where Jecht was.

"Jecht? Hmm. Outside, somewhere. Inorhe's keeping an eye on him, I think. They've repaired the Sphere, so I guess Jecht's seeing whether the Psyches play this week."

"Is it wise to let him…ow…"

"I told you not to talk." Braska said pitilessly. "That's your punishment for not trusting Jecht. And for disobeying my professionally given advise." He applied pressure on one rib until Auron began to hyperventilate from trying to keep still, gave it one sharp knock and ticked it into place. Auron whimpered softly, and he spoke up to cover it, "There. I'm sorry. This one was totally out of place." He looked away until he was sure his Guardian had his facial muscles back under control, then ventured a reassuring smile. 

"As for Jecht, I'm sure he'll be all right. He's learned to keep his mouth shut at the right times." 

"I…see…" Auron said faintly, unable, for the moment, to bring up enough interest in Jecht's do's and don'ts, and Braska wiped the sweat from his eyes with a clean, moist cloth. 

"As you should. You have other worries at the moment." 

He slid his hands over Auron's body one final time, concentrating on anomalies, but the bones and flesh his hands met was whole, if weak and strained. "Right. I'm going to swathe you up in bandages now, to make sure that everything will settle correctly. And then I can free you from this doubtlessly uncomfortable position." He smiled, grabbed the heap of bandages and proceeded to mummify his Guardian from waist to shoulders, pulling the strips so tight Auron's face turned red and his own knuckles grew white.

"There," he panted finally, "That should do it." He tapped against the man's chest. "Does this hurt?" Auron shook his head.

"I don't even feel it."

"Good. Let me get Inorhe so we can get your arms down."

"A knife…"

"I will not cut somebody else's ropes if they can do that for me," Braska admonished. He stood up, wavering a little, then walked out of the door in search of the big Ronso. 

"Try to breathe in now. Deeply. I know it hurts, but…no, deeper." Auron filled his lungs with air, then doubled up as something constricted there and brought his hands to his mouth. Bright red blood bubbled from between his fingers. The Summoner gritted his teeth as the other man began to cough again, and handed him a handkerchief. "Here, use this. It's the blood in your lungs, you'll have to cough it out."

"I don't…" Cough. "Understand. You healed me." Cough. "Why does it hurt…so much…still?" 

"You took a pretty bad beating. When it has sustained so much damage, your body needs some time to realize that it has been healed. Don't worry, you'll be fine in a day or so. You just need some time to recuperate." A knock interrupted him, and before he could say 'Enter', Jecht opened the door and walked in.

"Braska. Auron! How're ya doin'?" Auron hid the handkerchief in his lap and tried to frown. All he managed was a twitch of his brows, and Jecht looked a bit worried. "Are you alright?"

The man certainly did not look alright. He half lay, half sat on the bed, supported by pillows, bandages from hip to neck, skin the same colour as the cloth and obviously too weak to lift as much as a finger. But he nodded, and Braska interjected that he was fine, but that he should rest for at least a day, perhaps two.

"Braska…" Auron whined, but then he began to cough again and Jecht saw the bloody kerchief.

"Right," he said. "He looks just fine to me. The very picture of health. Remind me never to ask you whether I've got a cold or a lethal disease."

"Jecht!" Auron snapped, but the other man imitated one of his better snorts and sat down on one of the two chairs.

"Ah yes, I've got something for ya. Mint wine, wasn't it? They called it Ethera." he pulled a small, flat bottle out of his coat and handed it to Braska. "I smelled it. It smells vile. What on earth are we supposed to do with it?" Braska grinned cruelly, and Auron hissed. The bed creaked as he leaned into the pillows a little more.

"No. No. Oh no, no, no."

"Yes, Auron."

"No."

"Do I sense a childhood trauma here?" Jecht wondered aloud, and the Summoner began to laugh. Auron stared at the bottle as if it were a poisonous snake, shook his head slowly from side to side, without ever taking his eyes of it.

"It has nothing to do with childhood. It's poison, that. I want none of it."

"It will accelerate the mending of your bones with more than a day."

"I don't care." 

"I would have given you some if I'd had it, when you were unconscious."

"You should have taken your chance at the time," Auron said with uncharacteristic rudeness. "I am NOT taking as much as a spoonful of that stuff." The smile slipped from Braska's face.

"Auron."

"No."

"Don't be an idiot. You know it will help you heal."

"No."

"Oh come on, it can't possibly be that bad, can it?" Jecht said. "I mean, it smells bad, but if you just pinch your nose…?"

"You could use some as well," Auron hissed viciously. "Your arm's mending as well." Braska sighed.

"Auron, please."

"I'll take some if you take the same amount," the Guardian said, and gave Jecht a smile that suggested sharp teeth and talons. "How's that, my Lord?"

"Fine, fine."

"Hey!" Jecht protested, but Braska had already taken three small cups from his backpack, and now uncorked the bottle. A sickeningly sweet, minty scent wafted from the opening, and Jecht felt his nostrils quiver like those of a chocobo near a fiend. Auron pressed the bloody cloth against his nose and looked pained. Braska just turned a little paler and poured.

"Three cups?" Jecht asked.

"One for each of us. Or did you think I would let you drink this terrible brew just because I like seeing you sick?" He smiled, but in the stench of the wine it was more a grimace. "I can use a bit of energy as well."

"Is it really that horrible?"

"Worse." Auron gasped from behind his kerchief. "You'll be most terribly sorry that you agreed to drink it."

"I didn't." Jecht realized, but Braska pushed a cup into his hands, clinked it with his own, pinched his nose and said, "Cheers," And quaffed it in one gulp.

"Right." He did the same, and drank.

It tasted…terrible. He had never, ever imagined that such a horrible taste existed. It was a mixture of the cloying sweetness of honey and the sharp freshness of mint, combined with the bitterness of soap and some sort of oily fish taste. As soon as it hit his taste buds his whole body revolted, and he had to clasp both hands against his mouth to keep it in, although he had to swallow five times to actually get it down. 

"Aaahhh, damn…" he brought out, and wiped the tears from his eyes. "That must be the most terrible, horrible stuff I've EVER drank in my life!" 

"I'm not surprised," Auron groaned through teeth clenched together to keep from retching. He was holding his ribs with one arm and had his free hand pressed against his mouth. His face was almost green. "It is…filthy." A shiver ran through his frame, and he winced. "It is one of the few things I consider to be too terrible to drink, no matter the consequences. I agree, it works revitalising as soon as you've gotten the taste out of your mouth, but…" He closed his eyes and pressed his hand tighter against his mouth. 

"I know it tastes terrible," Braska muttered. His whole face was twitching as if his muscles had gone wild. "Every time I tell myself that it isn't that bad really—but it is!"

"You've drunk this more often?" Jecht asked, horrified. Braska nodded, shivering.

"There've been times I drank it every day. In the beginning, when I had just become a Summoner."

"You poor man!" Suddenly he remembered the other purchase had had made, and he pulled another bottle out of his pocket. "I'd planned on saving this until tomorrow, but I think we could all use a dose now, right?" He slammed the bottle of sake on the table. 

"My hero," grinned Braska, and put the bottle to his lips. Auron concurred. Within a minute half of the bottle was empty, and they sat there with their faces flushed and their eyes glassy, with a fire burning in their stomach.

"Though I'm not sure you should drink alcohol after imbibing Ether," Braska mused aloud. Jecht shrugged.

"I don't care. At least that taste is gone. For that matter, what's it supposed to do? I don't feel anything."

"You'll find out tomorrow morning. Or tonight. It will give you new energy." 

"Ah." He took another sip. "So…we might go to Luca tomorrow, and I could play."

"What?" He flexed his arm. There was still a twinge of pain when he bent it in a certain way, but otherwise it was fine. If that mint wine, or Ether, as Braska called it, was as effective as the Ronso in the shop had claimed it was, he would be able to play at full strength tomorrow.

"I called Wazzu. The Al Bhed Psyches play tomorrow, and one of their attackers has fallen ill. Wazzu wondered whether I could replace him." He twirled the bottle between his fingers. "He'd seen me practise. It'd be great to play once more for a change, instead of just looking at it." 

Braska looked at Auron, who shrugged sleepily—and winced.

"I can't fight now. You yourself told me I should rest for at least a day." The Summoner nodded.

"True. And whether you lie on your bed or sit in a stadium doesn't matter much." Jecht looked up.

"So we can go?!"

"Certainly. One day more or less…" But Jecht had already jumped to his feet, where he tottered dangerously for a moment before his momentum carried him forward.

"Great! I'll contact Wazzu right away." He moved to the door, then suddenly stopped and addressed Braska, "O yeah, one more thing. The Ronso guy downstairs wondered whether you could dismiss your Aeon. It's melting the whole road."

"Ifrit!" Braska howled, blanching beneath his flush. "I forgot all about him! Oh, he'll be furious!" Even faster than Jecht he stood up and ran out the door. Jecht grinned.

"The Summoners these days! Mislaying their Aeons all the time…" But Auron had his eyes closed, and if he heard him he did not reply, and privately Jecht was amazed that he had been awake for such a long time already.

"Thanks anyway," he whispered, and then the other surprised him once again by opening his eyes and nodding.

"You're welcome." Auron said, and went back to sleep.

To be continued…


	6. Days Gone By 6

Hello! Thanks for the reviews everybody! In this chapter the mountain is conquered and the hunt for Sin continues—that is, they rest up a bit, do some more talking, and decide on what course to follow. I promise that next chapter will have some more action and less talk. Oh, and…any suggestions on where they fight Sin?

6.

Ifrit had been too annoyed to even greet when Braska had come outside, and his profuse excuses and apologies the Aeon had received with a superior snort, and when Braska released the bond, it disappeared without its usual bark.

_He only just calmed down again,_ Braska thought to himself. _I can't ask him to do such a thing again. He would refuse anyway._ He sighed. Jecht was snoring softly beside him; Auron was quiet, but it was the quiet of deep sleep, and Braska's was the only conscious presence in the tent. At least he had gotten a bit warmer with the heat lamp and the food and the warmth of their three bodies, but his legs were soaked and small puddles gleamed on the floor where snow had molten. _What I wouldn't give for a Luca sphere right here…_He leaned against the solid mass of the memorial stone, smiling despite his discomfort. The day in Luca—or rather days in Luca—had been amusing and frustrating, with Jecht playing Blitzball and Auron bored out of his mind, but most of all it had been old-fashionably pleasant. Whenever Jecht came out of the stadium for a quick drink or something to eat, Auron and he bantered about everything they could think of, but nevertheless the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable, and when they had dinner that evening with the complete Al Bhed Psyches team, it was as if Sin did not exist, and the whole of Spira was happy and content.

_"This may be the last time you played Blitz," Braska said to Jecht, when the team was gone and the three of them were the only ones left._

_"I know."_

_"Does that make you feel sorry?"_

"Sorry? After today's game?" Jecht grinned. Then he took a sip of wine and shrugged. "Of course I feel sorry, but…ya know, Blitz'd stopped to be a challenge a long time ago. I mean, I love to do it, and I'm still good at it too, even after all the shit I've been doing. But…I got the Pilgrimage now. And without that little runt standing out there at the edge of the dome…well, somehow the game doesn't seem so interesting anymore." 

"I'm sure Auron will find your boy," Braska whispered, suddenly painfully reminded of his own child—but Yuna he could see, whenever he wanted. If only in the one sphere he brought with him. Yuna, Ditto, even a few seconds of Auron when he was a child, practicing with one of his friends at the temple.

"Of course I will, even if I don't know how." a voice interrupted his ponderings, and when he looked up from his clasped hands he noticed Auron observing him from where he lay. "I promised, didn't I?" He pushed himself to his knees and was silent for a while, listening. "I don't hear anything. How long have I slept?"

"A few hours, maybe two or three. It must be night."

"I don't hear anything at the moment. The storm must have lessened." Careful not to wake Jecht, who lay sprawled out on his blanket and took up more than half of the space, he stood up and began to unzip the opening. "I'll go outside and check."

"Be careful." Auron laughed softly.

"I do not think there will be any fiends about, my Lord. I will be back in a few minutes." He pushed the flap open, letting in a gust of icy but fresh air, and disappeared into the darkness.

"Huh?" Jecht muttered ineloquently, and bolted straight up. "Whuzzat?"

"That, my friend, is called fresh air," Braska said with a smile. "A welcome entity, I might add."

"It's cold." Jecht complained, and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. "Auron went out and check?"

"Yes. I think…" But at that moment Auron thrust his head inside already, and grinned widely.

"We should pack immediately. The storm is over for the time being, and the moon shines like the sun. It's beautiful outside. Not a fiend in sight. If this weather keeps up, we'll reach the Ronso village in less than three days." His Summoner nodded, and he poked Jecht in the side. "So move it, Zanarkand man! Get your stuff together. We leave in ten minutes."

            A few minutes later Braska had stuffed all his belongings back into his backpack, Jecht had bound all the blankets together and Auron had shaken all of the snow off the tent, and was now rolling it up. He was right: it was beautiful outside. As far as the eye could see there was the whiteness of the snow, rendered faintly bluish in the pale moon light. Blue and white and black where the only colours one could see; all other colours were sucked away and replaced with greys and blues and whites. Even Auron's vivid coat looked grey now, and Braska looked a scaled wraith in his black-red robes.

"You're right. It is beautiful," Braska echoed Jecht's thoughts. "Almost unbelievable that the storm was raging only a few hours ago." He wriggled his fingers in their leather gloves. "It is not even cold. We should be able to make great progress tonight."

"As long as it lasts," Jecht said gloomily, but the Summoner laughed at him.

"I know the air. I've lived in the desert for three years, Jecht, and I know whether we can expect storm or not. And tonight's air is as smooth and empty as…as…"

"His head," Auron provided, as he fastened the roll on his back. "We won't have any more snow tonight. Let's go."

As Braska had hoped, they came a long way that night. A soft breeze blew in their back and helped them forward as they ascended the mountains, which enabled them to move on with hardly any rest. They only paused, briefly, to eat something, and to drink some warming potion. After that, they walked until sunrise, without meeting a single fiend. Even though Braska said he could walk on for another hour at least, both Auron and Jecht then deemed it time to rest again, so they put up the tent again and took turns in standing guard. 

Afternoon found them still without seeing any fiends, but with a steadily darkening sky.

"There's another monster storm coming up," Jecht predicted, when Auron crept out of the tent and handed him a cup of tea. "Air's black as pitch. We should either move on quickly or tuck in safely." Auron looked up, the dimple between his eyebrows deepening.

"Yes," he agreed. "I'll wake Braska. The first few days of the Storming Season can still be a bit wavery, but if it starts for real we won't have any more days like this." He ducked back into the tent, and some time later they were on the road again.

            They passed the zenith, and were going down when a sudden gust of wind from the peak literally blew them to the ground and sent them rolling through the snow. 

"Whoa!" Jecht screamed when he came to a stop against a rock. "What the hell was that?" Next to him, Auron was pulling Braska out of a snow hill.

"The Season is rising! Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Are those camp fires, or is it the village already?" Braska peered into the distance, eyes almost squeezed shut, and said, "I think it's the village." He started as a flash of lightning lit the black sky like fire, then cowered a little when the thunder followed. "Damn! It's really starting. We need to get down as soon as possible."

"Isn't it dangerous to…"

"No more dangerous than crossing the Thunder Planes." Auron grinned. "Although you must have unpleasant memories of the Planes." He brushed the snow out of the high collar of his armour and wrung his dripping pony tail. The thunder growled again; it grew to a continuous rumble in the distance, but he ignored it, and led the other two men down as fast as he could. "As long as the thunder and the lightning are still separate, I don't think we'll be in any danger. We'll just have to keep our footing. Just follow…aah!" Jecht reacted just in time to grip his arm and keep him from falling into a ravine as the wind slammed into him.

"Right. We'll follow, and I'll make sure you won't fall." 

"Perfect cooperation," Braska murmured with mock-emotion, before tottering dangerously and grasping Jecht's shoulders for support. "Whoo! Let us move on!"

"Right. Jecht, you can let go now."

The only fiend they met was a confused and panicked elemental, which they dispatched off in a few seconds, but nevertheless they were all trembling on their legs when they finally reached the Ronso Village a day later. The wind had acutely fastened their way down, blowing down the slopes so hard they hardly had to walk. But this speed had taken its toll, and Summoner and Guardians alike all but collapsed on the doorstep of the Inn.

*

"There is something threatening," Jecht mused aloud later, when they were all warm and dry in their room, drinking tea in front of the hearth, "about a dozen or so Ronso watching you from up high while you're lying on the ground. Especially when they make that funny noise in their throat."

"Hm. I always misjudge the sharpness of their claws as well," Auron agreed, rubbing a red stripe on his bare arm, "They could have been a little more careful when they helped me up—or retracted their nails."

"You are most ungrateful," Braska chided with a smile. "Be glad they did not lick you in fond welcome." The Guardian snorted, and buried his face in his mug. Their faces and hands were all bright red, from the whipping wind as much as from the heat of the bath, the fire and the steam of the tea, and their half-dried hair stood in static clouds around their heads. They looked, Jecht observed, like a couple of Al Bhed fugitives. He would have loved to go and get a cask of sake right now, but the shop was on the other side of the village and he did not feel like going outside again—not until he was as hot as he could get and the wind had stopped raging. Luckily Auron still had some brandy left in his flask, and to every mug of tea he added a healthy dollop of alcohol. It tasted horrible—lovely, in comparison to the Ether—but it warmed them pleasantly from the inside as well. Together with a generous meal and a soft bed, Jecht thought this situation came close to being heaven.

Braska excused himself right after dinner, saying he was too tired to keep his eyes open, and the Guardians wished him good night, remaining by the fire themselves. 

"This is nice," Jecht said, breaking the silence a few minutes later. "I'm finally warm, I'm tired, but pleasantly tired, I'm well-fed, clean, and very close to getting drunk, but not quite yet." Auron nodded. A strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he combed it away with a lazy movement of his hand. Just as in the Dome, he suddenly looked younger; not vulnerable, just a little less serious and responsible. 

"We can relax for a while now," he drawled contentedly. "Unless Braska buys more mint wine we'll need to stay here for some days to rest—and I'll be damned if I drink any more of that stuff."

"It did do you a world of good."

"Ha. It almost killed me. Did wonders for you game-play though."

"You really thought so?" Auron nodded.

"O yes, definitely. You almost moved like a young man again." He ducked as Jecht made a swipe at his ear, and grinned. "You should have heard that woman sitting next to me. "Ooh, who's that tall, lean man playing with the Psyches? He looks ancient, but he swims as fast as my Anda!"

"No! She didn't!"

"Sssh, you'll wake Braska!"

"She didn't!" Jecht hissed, even redder than before.

"Yes, she did." Jecht buried his face in his hands.

"I'm not ancient!"

"Hmph."

"I'm not ancient!"

"If you say so. How old are you, anyway? You never told me."

"You never asked. I don't know your age either."

"I am twenty-four."

"Really?" Auron frowned.

"Yes? Why?"

"I thought you were much younger."

"Jecht!" The man smiled, and poured more brandy into his mug, without adding tea this time.

"Just kiddin'."

"And?"

"And what?"

"How old are you?" He emptied the mug, and refilled it. Auron followed his example, but did mix it with tea.

"I am forty-two."

"That old?" Jecht arched an eyebrow, suspecting another verbal attack.

"Yes, that old. Why so?" Auron hid his mouth behind the top of his cup.

"You do not behave like a man of forty-two." Jecht sighed.

"I knew you'd say such a thing."

"Of course you did. You behave like a sixteen-year-old, you can expect me to say such a thing." He took a few swallows, found the tea pot empty, shrugged and refilled his mug with brandy. "Anyway. It doesn't matter. I don't think you'll age anymore, not now you're a fayth."

"I don't feel like a fayth."

"You still are one." He looked up from his cup, gazed at the other man with the same openness in his eyes as when he had ventured that maybe Jecht's Zanarkand was the same as Spira's Zanarkand, and said, "and Lord Braska is of the opinion that you're a very good fayth. A better one than I'd ever be." Jecht cleared his throat.

"Braska said so?" Auron nodded, and drank away his sudden embarrassment. By now the cask had gone from half-full to almost empty, and his eyes were beginning to glass over. He hunched his shoulders, as if the absence of his armour rendered him unprotected, even here at the table, and in the opening of his shirt the scar on his chest gleamed pinkly in the light.

"Auron?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you just marry that priest's daughter and start a family?" _Now where did **that** come from?_ Auron seemed almost as surprised as Jecht felt himself, but instead of telling him to mind his own business he looked into the flames and shrugged.

"I did not love her." It was a short reply, and a sufficient one, so Jecht did not expect him to go on, but after a few second he did nevertheless. "She was a nice girl—pretty too, and I liked talking to her. But she…" He frowned. "I think she was in love with me. I don't want to flatter myself, but I think she was. She was, is, also four years younger than I am, and her head was filled with dreams. She hung around me whenever I was free, and I…" He gave a sort of helpless smile. "She deserved someone who loved her, not someone like me, who only used her. At the time, I wasn't so sure about becoming a warrior monk anymore; Lord Braska had come back, and the first Summoners were beginning to make themselves ready for the next Pilgrimage. I may sound like an idiot, but somehow I liked being with Braska, playing with Yuna, much better than dating a girl I did not love and kissing up to her father." His hair fell back over his face, and he unconsciously pushed it back, gripping it between his fingers as he spoke. _So that's why he wears it in a pony tail. He's one of those guys who plays with it if it hangs loose_, Jecht thought involuntarily.

"Didn't you tell her? And was that why you were kicked out of the Warrior Monks?"

"Something like that. I'd been hesitating a long time—maybe too long. Ennalone was already talking about marriage when I finally found the courage to tell her that I did not love her." Jecht winced. A scene made all the more lifelike by the alcohol he had consumed played out in front of his heavy-lidded eyes. Auron and a blonde-haired young woman in beautiful garments.

_Auron: I need to tell you something, Ennalone._

_Ennalone: Have you finally decided when we will hold the marriage, my love?_

_Auron: I don't love you. Good bye._

_Ennalone: But…eyes brimming with tears Auron…my love?_

He shook his head to clear away the images and asked how the girl had reacted. Once more he expected Auron to draw back, but he was surprised again. The Guardian's mouth curved up in a wry smile.

"She was furious. She'd already been searching for a dress to wear at the wedding."

"Poor thing."

"Yes. She almost made me change my mind, but I had made my decision, and I truly did not love her. So…"

"So?"

"So she ran to the man who had guarding duty that evening—she always had a Guardian with her when she was outside her rooms; a man chosen from the Warrior Monks or the elder acolytes—and told him I'd raped her."

"What!?" Auron nodded, and pressed his finger to his lips.

"Ssh. You'll wake Braska."

"That little bitch!" The other shrugged.

"It was the act of a spited girl. Kinoc, the man who'd been her Guardian that evening, backed my statement that I hadn't touched her, and in the end I wasn't even court-martialled. It never leaked out of the temple, and she drew back her complaint." He sighed, looked at his mug, then at the bottle, but decided against having another glass. "It did ruin all chances of promotion, though. For many men." And now he grinned, a malicious, nasty grin. "Ennalone was fed up with men, and decided that she needed at least a few years to prepare for a new possible wedding. Kadol and Muzzu actually shed tears over that."

"And they kicked you out?"

"Something like that. I wasn't actually thrown out at all, you see, but…let's say that my carrier had stopped at that point, with no chances of rising any higher at all."

"So you quit." Auron furrowed his brow.

"No, I did not. I remained a Warrior Monk until Braska told me that he was going to go on his Pilgrimage. At that moment I left the Temple and became a Guardian.

But enough of me. I've just laid my soul bare to you, now it's your turn. Tell me of your greatest fears and embarrassments."

"No, thank you."

"Then tell me your story." Jecht blinked. Auron had said that more often: tell me your story. Or: make your own story.

"What do you mean?" Auron shrugged.

"That part of your life that is important to you. The decisions that made you what you are now." And when the man remained silent, "At least tell me the name of your wife then. If I want to find her after we've beaten Sin, I need to know her name, and what she looks like." 

"Lynn." 

"Lynn?" Jecht rested his chin on his fists.

"Lynn. Her name's Lynn." He traced the edge of his mug with one callused finger. "She's very small, a full head and shoulders shorter than I am, with straight, reddish-brown hair and grey eyes. Freckled. Her face…she has a face that always smiles, ya know? I used to tease her that she'd become a wrinkled old hag before she was thirty because she was always laughing —but even though she has crow's feet in the corners of her eyes, you can see they're made by smiling so much, and…" His voice caught, and he grimaced. "I am sorry," he continued, more hoarsely than usual, "but I can't talk…about her right now." Auron looked away, giving him a little time to recompose himself.

"That's all right. I'll find her with your description. Hey, who knows, I might be able to take her back with me, to Spira." Jecht looked doubtful, but Auron gazed back at him with such touching and hopeful optimism that he could not bring himself to tell him about what the small hooded fayth had told him when he passed out at the Wall of the Fayth, and gave him a somewhat quivery smile.

"Who knows, eh, Auron." But then he was silent, and he sat staring into the fire for a long time even after the other Guardian had sought his bed.

*

The next morning they all slept late, and spent the day repairing their gear and buying potions. Here at the foot of the mountains, the Storming Season was little more than a hard breeze with the occasional bout of thunder, but even here the air had noticeably cooled down, and Jecht, who had complained about the bulk of his fur coat, wrapped the thing tighter around his body instead of selling it again, as he had said he would. No matter how often they assured him that it was made of a bear, he could not rid himself of the idea that it was made of Ronso—who had ever heard of a blue bear?—and that thought filled him with disgust. Jecht did not like the Ronso. He thought them rude, imposing and arrogant, and the way they whipped their tails about when he spoke to them made him feel threatened.

Braska nodded when he told him of his antipathy, muttering something along the lines of "One disposition, different sympathies," and smiled that private little smile of his when his Guardian said he did not understand what he was talking about.

"They're rather like you, Jecht. Rude, imposing and arrogant, and they don't know how to handle that in you."

"I'm not…"

"They expect people to cower before them. Instead of cowering, you ask them whether they always shed so much hair when it's cold." He laughed. "I'm not surprised they don't like you, nor that you do not like them." Jecht snorted, but he had to agree with the Summoner. _Maybe I AM just a little bit arrogant, and a little bit rude,_ he thought, watching as the enormous Inorhe jumped through the village on four feet to catch one of the cubs who had escaped, _but at least I don't growl at people when I talk to them, or flash some big horn at them. And, _he plucked a handful of blue-grey hair off his coat, _I don't lose hair on other people's clothing._

"Braska?"

"Hm?"

"Do you know where Sin is at the moment?"

"One moment." Careful not to spill a drop, the Summoner capped all the vials in front of him, then looked up. "Sin? I looked at the sphere this morning. Apparently it has left Bevelle and is now cruising around somewhere in the Ocean. As far as I know it has gone in the direction of the Calm Lands."

"When will we leave?" Braska smiled, and did that dancing thing with his eyebrows again.

"Why? Eager to beat it?" Jecht shrugged.

"Just eager to leave." Outside, Inorhe came bouncing back, the mewling cub in his mouth. Jecht turned away from the windows with a sick feeling in his stomach. The cub was probably just as heavy as he was, and that beast carried it in his mouth! The smile became a chuckle.

"You truly do not like them, do you? I had planned on leaving tomorrow. We can take the sphere straight to the Calm Lands. I still have more than enough tickets to get there without buying them here."

"Hm." Jecht fingered one of the flat, glossy coins the Spirals used to pay for the use of a Luca sphere. It would take someone from a certain place to Luca, and to the place the ticket came from. In this way, it was possible to travel from Besaid to Guadosalam in a few minutes—but it did cost money, and one had to have been to all the places one wanted to revisit before it was possible to travel in this way.

"Were you able to buy some in Zanarkand as well?"

"Yes, I was." He opened a small pocket in his sleeve and took out a whole stack of coins, all of a different colour. "Let me see, Besaid, Kilika, Luca, these I bought this morning, in case we want to come back here again…these are…Guado, I suppose, yes. Calm Lands, Macalania, Djose, and these black ones are from Zanarkand. I'm not sure whether they'll still work though. The sphere wasn't working very well—it could not send us, as you noticed—and it spit out most of my gil with the tickets, but still. If Zanarkand is still on the destination list in Luca, we should be able to return there."

"It is. I looked it up especially. Zanarkand's still on the list." Braska observed him from behind lowered lashes.

"Do you want to go back?" Jecht shrugged.

"Maybe not today. But once, yes. Yes, I think I do. One day, I'll make this Lady Yunalesca tell me exactly what is going on with the fayth." He leaned back in his chair, a frown on his normally gruff but cheerful face. "And if I have to, I will make her pay." 

To Be Continued….


	7. Days Gone By 7

Hello! Here is part seven. Twenty reviews already! Wheeee! More! More! Shower me with comments!

Okay, this will be one of the last chapters before Auron goes to Spira, sooo…enjoy!

7.

After the cold and the snow, the Calm Lands' soft climate felt like a balm.

"This is more like it," Jecht cheered as he let the fur coat slide from his shoulders. "Sunshine and green grass."

"And chocobos," Braska added with a note of surprise in his voice, and pointed at the row of birds grazing to the left of the agency. Auron appeared next to him, almost as if the sphere spit him out, and shook his head.

"Excuse me. Did you say something?"

"Just that there seem to be a lot of chocobos here. Very young ones, too. They barely seem out of chick-hood." Jecht grinned. In return, three young chocobos looked at him and went 'fweeeee!', and moved their heads up and down. Auron laughed as well.

"They like you. Perhaps, later, when you're too old to play blitzball, you could become a Chocobo Knight too." Braska smacked his forehead.

"Of course, Crusaders. That's what Kimahri meant with his 'train of fledglings', aspiring Chocobo Knights. How surprisingly apt of him!" Jecht snorted.

"A poetic Ronso. Great." Braska ignored him. He straightened his head ornament that had been loosened by the sphere travelling and walked towards the door.

"I've wanted to speak to Banshu for a long time. If I'm correct he still trains the squires, and if Kimahri was right he should be here as well. If anyone knows about the whereabouts of Sin, it's him," he clarified to Jecht, and opened the door. "I'd like to…my, but it's crowded in here."

He was right; the usually quiet Inn was filled with people, who at the moment seemed to be having lunch at three rows of long tables.

There was the sound of many young voices conversing, then, as Jecht closed the door behind him, suddenly a dead quiet. Then, like a wave rolling over the beach, the voices swelled to a clamour that made the chocobos outside twitter and squeak: "It's Lord Braska! Sir Auron! Sir Jecht! Sir AURON!!!" Seventeen faces had turned to the door; eight quickly blushing teenaged female faces, eight excited youth faces and one stern, but brightening male face, which soon expressed something close to desperation as the girls all but fell off their chair to launch themselves at Auron.

"It's a fan-club!" Jecht exclaimed with delight, and even though he was not the direct centre of their excitement, he revelled in their attention nevertheless.

"No kidding," Auron muttered under his breath, but his mouth was quivering with mirth.

"Sir Auron!"

"Sir Auron!"

"Have you been to Zanarkand, Sir Auron?"

"Lord Braska!"

"Did you obtain the Final Aeon?"

"Did you really see Zanarkand?"

"Did you finish the Pilgrimage, my Lord Summoner?"

"Men!" a deep voice called over the chirping voices, but they did not even hear him.

"Sir Jecht! Was that you with the Al Bhed? You were awesome!"

"Sir Auron is sooo handsome!"

"Sir Jecht is sooo cool!"

"Did he really play Blitzball? But he's a Guardian!"

"Lord Braska? Would you sign my rites of Yevon?"

"MEN!" the one adult in the group bellowed; so hard that sweat popped out on his tanned forehead. "LEAVE THE SUMMONER AND HIS GUARDIANS ALONE!" Braska waved his hand soothingly.

"Ah, Banshu. It's all right. It's only natural that they are curious." A soft cheer rose from the silenced squires.

"Lord Braska is so nice!"

"And so handsome too!" Braska pretended to cough to cover his laughter. Both he and Auron were a bit flustered under the squires' sometimes somewhat embarrassing praise, and when they spoke they had to bite their lips more than once to keep from laughing out loud. Jecht, grown up in Zanarkand as a star blitzer, did not feel flustered. This was his due right, and it had taken long enough before he'd finally gotten it. Within seconds he had four of the eight boys hanging around him, listening breathlessly as he told them of his special moves, and how great it was to play the game.

Auron eyed him enviously; it was a lot easier to bear the reverence of boys than the gawking of girls, and all eight of them were sitting right in front of him, gazing at him as if he were Yevon incarnated.

"Sir Auron…"

"Sir Auron…" The mere sound of his name made their eyes glitter.

"Have you been to Zanarkand? What was it like, there?"

"Are the legends true, Sir Auron?"

"Is it in ruins?" He nodded, not expecting to get a word in anyway. A small black-haired girl who had to be fourteen but looked barely ten placed her hand very close to his on the table and said dreamily, "When I'm a knight, I'll go and see Zanarkand too. I want to see all the wonders of Spira. Right, Sir Auron?" He smiled.

"I don't see why not. But if you go to Zanarkand, best bring a technician. The sphere's broken over there." The girl sniffed, a more refined version of his own snort.

"Spheres are for doozies. I'll have my chocobo! I'll ride!" Auron grinned with just a hint of cruelty.

"I just came here by sphere. I find it a very comfortable way of travelling." The girl flushed beet-red.

"Oh," was all she could say, before another girl had taken her place with a withering glare at her poor friend, and began to ask him about the rest of the Pilgrimage. 

Braska, in the meantime, had found a place next to Banshu. Two of the boys were watching him from a little distance, but somehow the Summoner did not invite gawking and fawning, and, after a friendly nod in their direction, he paid them no further attention. 

"So tell me," he addressed the knight, "what has Sin been up to, these last two weeks?" Banshu tapped his knife on the table.

"Sin? It's running rampant. One day it threatens the sea, another day the land. The Crusaders are recruiting people like mad—or d'you think that the babes I have in my group are good enough to put up a proper fight against Sin?" One of the boys frowned, but he did not say anything. "They can sit on their birds and they won't fall off when we go any faster than a canter, but…The situation's getting out of hand, Lord Braska. Sin's growing bigger and more savage every day. Even the people in Luca're walking around with fear in their eyes. Children crying over killed parents every day. We desperately need a Calm." Braska nodded seriously.

"I know. I am sorry it took me so long to complete my Pilgrimage, but there've been… complications." He smiled apologetically. Banshu inclined his head, colouring a bit.

"I did not mean to reproach you, my Lord. It's just…"

"I understand. It's all right." He fastened his brilliant green-blue eyes on the older Crusader, still smiling, but solemn none the less. "Within the next three days I will find Sin. I will fight him, and a Calm will come. With so many standing behind me and depending on me, I cannot fail, can I?" Rebuked, Banshu's gaze dropped from his face.

"No, my Lord."

"I'm glad you agree." Banshu looked up from the table and met Braska's twinkling eyes.

"My Lord…" But the other silenced him with a chuckle.

"You know I have to insist on a little respect in front of your pupils, my friend. However, you do not need to grovel. What is it in me that makes people want to lie on the ground and kiss my feet?" He canted his head and let his eyebrows dance. Banshu began to laugh.

"It must be your fabulous riches, my Lord." Braska brought his hand to his face in mock depression.

"And I thought it was my incredible charm. Woe is me.

'Anyway," he templed his fingers and rested his chin on top of them, "I need to know where Sin is at the moment. The last I heard in Luca was that he was close to Kilika." 

"Very well possible. Like I said, it's running rampant. Unless you know exactly where it is AND have a sphere in the vicinity so you can move real fast and catch it before it swims away, there's no way you can fight it.

As I see it, the best way to attack Sin is go to the sea-side and wait until you see it. It's bound to show up sooner or later, and since the Calm Lands are more or less the centre of Spira, you'll have as much luck finding it as when you try to follow it."

"Are you sure? Naturally, I want to fight him as soon as possible."

"Naturally?" Banshu pursed his lips. "Are you so eager to die?"

"Banshu!"

"Well, I'm sorry, my Lord, but no matter how much you want to save Spira, your own life…"

"Means nothing to me if Yuna dies because of one of Sin's attacks," Braska finished his sentences, and this time he did not smile at all. "Of course I am not eager to die. I am, however, eager to use the power I have gotten from Yevon to save the people I love. Everyday," he continued, when the Crusader would have spoken, "I come by ravaged villages and slaughtered, maimed, suffering people. People that look up to me for guidance and protection. I can heal only so many wounds, Banshu, and there is only one way to heal the wound that is currently draining Spira. I have to kill Sin. And the sooner I do it, and make the people happy again, the better."

"But it'll be back." Banshu said quietly, unwittingly echoing Auron. "In eight, maybe ten years at most, it will be back. And then another Summoner…"

"In ten year we'll be able to learn a lot more about Sin and his origin," Braska said with a hint of impatience. "And maybe, just maybe, he won't come back. I have full confidence in my Aeon. I wish that you had the same." Banshu made the sign of prayer, bowing his head almost to the table.

"I beg your forgiveness, my Lord. I did not mean to insult you." 

"You'd better not." The Summoner still sounded cool. Banshu's forehead touched wood.

"My Lord Braska…"

"Sit up straight, man, and stop bowing. I know you meant well. But I will not have anybody, you included, distract me from my Pilgrimage. Not even if you mean well. I'm only human."

_One would not think so, if you look at them,_ the Crusader thought with a glance towards his pupils. They were both looking at Braska with awe—although whether that was because of his speech, his charm or his ability to make their rock-hard instructor bow to the floor (or in this case the table) was unclear. But when he stood up and gazed down on them from a height that his slight body did not possess, he knew it was the Summoner and nothing else than his presence that made their faces shine. Braska, for all his pleasantness and easy manners, was a High Summoner from head to toe, and everybody around him could not help but react to him.

"Auron. Jecht. Are you ready?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Sure. Er, my Lord." Jecht grinned and scratched his head, not exactly familiar with the title, but resolved to fit in as best as he could. "See ya again, kid. Remember, if you get the starting position right, nothing can go wrong." Braska's face relaxed, and when he performed the sign of prayer towards seventeen Crusaders and the man who ran the agency, eighteen bodies mimicked his action.

"Good luck, my Lord Summoner!"

"Good luck!"

"Kick 'm for me!"

"Good bye, Sir Auron!"

"Bye!"

"Good luck!"

"Be careful!" Auron smiled, one of his rare, broad smiles.

"Farewell."

"Well that was rather definite," Jecht complained when they had left the building. "Saying farewell to all those nice kids." Auron arched his eyebrows.

"Then what should I have said? See you next week? Hasta la vista? They're going to send those children after Sin, if this keeps up. 

And besides, I like to say farewell. It is an excellent phrase to use when you leave. Fare well. Be good. I honestly don't know why you're complaining." 

"You know," Jecht said, "you keep surprising me. Every time I think you'll answer me with a snort, you open that mouth of yours and a whole lot of nonsense comes pouring out."

"Well, I couldn't leave you standing there doing that by yourself, could I?" Auron responded with unexpected rancor.

"Children," Braska sighed. Auron snorted. Jecht burst into laughter, much to Auron's annoyance, but since he was resolved not to take the bait—whatever bait Jecht was using—he just pressed his lips together and stared off into the distance. 

"Auron?"

"What?" he snapped, but Jecht slapped him on the shoulder.

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand."

"What?!" Jecht shook his head, but he was still smiling.

"You're a better man than you'd like to admit." Auron turned a bit red.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he sputtered, but the frown smoothed out a bit, and when he stared into the distance once more, it was with a pondering expression on his face instead of a brooding one. Jecht put his hands in his pockets and began to whistle the Hymn of the Fayth—and near the travel agency seventeen chocobos chirruped back at him.

"So Sin's running around in circles," said Jecht aloud when they were taking a short break sometime later during the day.

"I wouldn't say he's running in circles, but he is running around blindly, yes," Braska agreed. He gathered a bunch of the long, flowing grass by twirling his staff around on the ground. "I want to move to the cliffs to the north; maybe we can spot him. According to Banshu he mainly keeps to the water."

"Well surprise, surprise. He's a fish, after all." Auron, from where he was lying on his back in the grass, blinked his eyes.

"Fish? Sin isn't a fish!" Jecht waved his hand.

"Whatever. You know what I mean. It looks like a fish."

"It does not look like a fish. It looks like…Sin. I've never seen a fish looking even remotely like Sin."

"Of course not, Auron. You're the Sin-expert." He waited for the snort, but when it did not follow his taunt he looked up, and caught the other man looking at him with an even darker expression on his face than earlier that day. Automatically he leaned back a little, to create more distance between the two of them. "Okay." The waving gesture became a defending gesture. "I said something that pissed you off." Auron shook his head.

"Of course you did," he sneered. "But since you never think before you say something I can spare myself the trouble of telling you exactly what it was that 'pissed me off'." He rolled to his feet. "Let me tell you one thing, though. My whole family was destroyed by Sin, and I've seen many of my friends chase after him and get killed as well. My best friend is chasing him right now, and I can't stop him so I've come along to protect him until I can watch him die. My whole life has been reigned by and decided on by Sin, so DON'T TELL ME I DON'T KNOW SIN!"

"Hey, I'm sorry!"

"Of course you're sorry." snarled Auron. "You're always sorry. That doesn't improve matters, you know?" 

"He didn't know, Auron," Braska said soothingly, but this time his Guardian refused to be pacified, although he did calm down a little.

"That's the trouble with you, Jecht,' he said grimly. "You don't know. But you should have realised by now. Shall we go on?" Braska nodded and Jecht followed them, feeling chastened but rebellious at the same time.

_How d'ya expect me to know then, Auron? I'm not from this world, and you never speak of your past. Unless you're drunk, of course. You're cynical about everything, why shouldn't you be sarcastic about Sin?_ But then he replayed what the other man had said in his mind, and when he came to that one sentence '_My best friend is chasing him right now, and I can't stop him so I've come along to protect him until I can watch him die,'_ he felt something like understanding. _Braska. Whatever Auron says or does, it all comes back to Braska. And Braska will die. It's not the death his family that made him react like that, it's the fact that he'll lose Braska to Sin. _Suddenly he remembered something the Guardian in Bevelle had said when her Summoner had become a heretic and she had killed her herself with a swift sword stroke. _Sin takes everything away from us. Everything! Until one day, you wake up and you find yourself all alone, because everything and everybody you once loved has been destroyed. Even now…even now, without even being here, it's taken his life…and it's made me do it for it!_

For the first time since he'd arrived in Spira, Jecht forced himself to imagine what life must be in a world where every day can be your last, whether you're rich, poor, strong or weak. He looked at Braska's cone-shaped, robe-clad figure, and imagined he were dead. And he found that he could not imagine such a thing.

"Jecht? Are you coming?" Unwittingly, he had fallen behind. Braska's turquoise eyes, so full of life and intelligence, lit up in the descending sun. A_nd this man will die…_

He nodded, and jogged a few meters until they walked side by side again.

"Tell me," he said, seriously this time, "how it is possible that Sin returns every time."

"Because it's Sin," Auron replied instead of the Summoner. "And whether that's a being or a crime, it will come back to haunt you for the rest of eternity." The sun changed the colour of his eyes to a dark, smouldering red, did not light them up like Braska's. 

"Although I hope to change that," Braska said airily. 

"Vanity is a sin, too," Jecht quipped, and the Summoner chuckled, but Auron managed no more than the faintest smile.

"Really, you shouldn't…" A strange, bubbling sound interrupted him, and before he could even draw his sword or cry alarm, a yellow fog blew into their faces, and Braska sank to his knees with a strangled cry.

"What the…?"

"Don't inhale!" Auron cried, and got a healthy dose inside. He began to cough. From a dimple in the landscape, a herbal horror that consisted of a mass of tentacles and eyes, dozens of eyes on tentacles, glided rapidly closer. The thing flashed the three of them a grin of death.

_Marlboro?_ Jecht wondered, disbelieving. "They don't belong here! It shouldn't be here!"

"Quit jabbering!" Auron barked, and shot forward to attack. He hit, but the fiend did not even flinch, and the Guardian narrowly ducked a spray of venom as it retaliated. _Yeah, sure…_Jecht chanted one of his few spells, and immediately Auron's outline became a little hazy, as if he were moving too swiftly for the eye to follow.

"Thanks! See to Braska!"

"Do it yourself!" Jecht snapped, and did a drop-kick towards the plant's left-most tentacle-eye. He followed it with a slash, and the tentacle dropped to the ground, where it quivered in the grass for a long time yet. "I'm not affected by the fog!"

He was not, Auron realised. He himself could feel the Marlboro's poison rage through his blood like a fever, creating an aching throb in his stomach, and Braska was huddled in the grass with his face buried in his hands, shivering just as badly as Auron did. _But_ _he isn't affected indeed. But he's not warded against poison, I'm sure of that!_ Then he shook himself and dug in his satchel for antidote.

"Are you all right, Braska?" _Where was that stupid vial?_ Jecht assaulted the plant again, and again a keening cry bubbled up from it as he severed another tentacle. Braska, however, did not make a sound at all.

"Here! Drink it!" His own hand shook so badly he could hardly thrust the potion in the Summoner's hands, but for the moment the poison was not important. What was, was that Braska was unable, for the moment, to defend himself or call upon an Aeon. The world spun before his eyes as he launched himself against the fiend, but he managed to strike it near the roots, and if the venom burned an ugly hole in the empty sleeve of his coat, he did not care. Beside him, Jecht attacked again and again. He deflected the acidic sprays with almost lazy movements, vigorously slashing away at the tentacles and humming a terrible travesty of the Hymn of the Fayth as he fought. _But…what power!_ Even though it felt like hours, Auron knew that Jecht had dispatched of the Marlboro in less than three minutes. As it went up in a cloud of pyreflies he stood panting, hunched over his sword, and stared at the other man in awe.

"You never…f-fought like that…before…" Jecht, who seemed just as much amazed as he was, shook his head.

"Noo…" he murmured, "I don't think so either. But you! You look terrible. Hey Braska, you okay?" The Summoner was still curled up over his knees as he had fallen, the empty vial of antidote clenched in his fingers. He looked better than Auron, but still faintly greenish in the face, and his chin was quivering.

"I will be," said Braska in a small voice, "as soon as I know which way is up and which way is down again…"

"That's a side effect of the poison, right?" Jecht asked, feeling dumb. He could still not place the fiends apart, and once he had merrily attacked what he thought was a harmless fire elemental while it had been a thing that could detonate right in front of you and blow you clean out of your shoes. Auron had been gibbering for hours after that. But this time he seemed to have been right, for the other Guardian nodded, and began to rummage in his backpack for more antidote. After a while he stopped, drew up his knees and waited until his Summoner felt better again.

Jecht almost did not notice that he did not come up with a vial, but when, after five more minutes, Auron was still quivering like a too tightly strung harp string and had his chin pressed so tightly against his knees that it had to hurt, he touched the man's shoulder and asked him whether he was alright.

"F-fine," Auron replied curtly. As soon as he eased the pressure of his jaws, his teeth began to chatter again. "We're out of a-anti-d-dote," he explained patiently, when Jecht's eyes widened with shock.

"We're out of…damn it all to hell! Braska, hurry up, whatever you need to do! Are you mad? Why didn't you say anything? Isn't there anything else you can take—man, you'll die if you just sit there!" Auron had the nerve to look amused—as far as one can look amused while burning up with fever and suffering from the feeling like that of a nail driven into one's intestines; Auron managed to look amused—and wrapped his arms closer around his body.

"T-take it easy. I'm n-not dead y-yet. And B-B-Braska can heal m-me when he f-feels b-better." He pushed his chin down on his knees again, and the chattering subsided.

"Quit playing the hero, damn it!" 

"I'm n-not pl-playing the h-hero," said Auron, as firmly as he could while trying not to bit his tongue. He was shivering so hard now that his sword rattled against his armour. "J-just b-b-being sensible." He curled in on himself for a moment, digging his fingers into his boots, then took a deep breath. "Although you do have to h-hurry, if you c-can, m-m-my Lord…" 

Braska drew himself up. He was still pale, and his irises tended to roll all over his eyes, but when he began to pray his voice was steady.

"In Yevon's mercy, let all that is toxic leave this body; let strength flood back and replace weakness." It was a rather hurried prayer, but it worked all the same. Jecht began to suspect that Braska was more of an actor than he had thought, but then, anyone had the right to have a weakness. Braska more than everybody else he knew. Auron breathed a sigh of relief, but when he attempted to stand up his knees buckled and he landed gracefully on his backside, so Braska quickly cast another spell to give him back his strength. The effects of poison, it seemed, were a lot easier to repair than broken bones, for when the last of the fiend's pyreflies had disappeared, both Summoner and Guardian were standing straight on their feet again, muddy-kneed and clothes slightly burnt away by acid, but whole and unwavering.

"All in all this cost us way too much time," Braska grumbled, as they moved towards the cliffs once more. "It's already getting dark." He blinked. "It's not supposed to be dark yet—we cannot have lost that much time. Is the weather…" He stopped. A wave of darkness, an enormous shadow passed over the flowing green planes of the Calm Lands, originating at the ocean. At the same time, they all noticed the strange, low, humming buzz that had been growing ever since they had been attacked by the Marlboro. The sound of many, many wings. And the slosh of water.

"It isn't the weather," Auron whispered. He had gone pale again, much paler than he had been when he had been poisoned. "It's Sin."

To be continued…

Next chapter: Sin.


	8. Days Gone By 8 SIN

8. SIN

The first thing Jecht felt when Auron's words sank in was not fear, but denial. 

_No. it can't be Sin. Not yet. Not NOW! There's so much more I want to talk about, so much more I need to know about Spira, and about Braska—it's too soon, we're not ready, **I**'m not ready! We still had two days!_ And finally, when Braska raised his face to the sky, closed his eyes and obviously prepared for what would be his final Summoning, _it's not fair!_

"Braska…" Auron's voice was hoarse, but he was not pleading now. "My Lord, I…" Braska opened his eyes, eyes the colour of lazy summer afternoons and tropical seas. Eyes that saw everything, and understood all.

"I know." Auron shook his head.

"No, you don't. I…" he stopped, gazed at the grass, looked up again. And he smiled, with difficulty, but genuinely.

"I will guard you with my life. Whatever will happen." The Summoner smiled back, then reached out his hand and lay it, flat, the fingers stretched out, against his Guardian's cheek. It was an oddly brotherly gesture, affectionate and reassuring, but Auron leaned into it as if it were the touch of a lover. Braska's smile, already serious, turned sad.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, too softly for Jecht to hear from where he was standing, "to have to do this to you. To ask of you that you live, no matter what. But we…Spira…we need people like you, Auron. I need you to live, no matter what. For Yuna, and for Jecht's child, and…It will be good to know…for _me_…that you still live. That, even when I am dead, I will have created a Sin-free world for you to live in." He pushed the younger man's chin up, slid his hand to his shoulder and squeezed. "I want you to be happy." He chuckled. "Doesn't that sound like a fairy-tale wish?"

"Eh, Braska? Auron?" Jecht nervously looked at the sky, which was now completely darkened with Sin spawn. "Those things are about to come down real soon!" The Summoner nodded.

"Yes. We should go. Auron?" His Guardian clasped his slender wrist in his own large hand.

"I am ready. Let's go." 

"Right. Follow me." He broke out in a run, heading for the cliffs, Jecht and Auron close on his heels. "We have to come as close as possible!" Braska shouted over the din of the fluttering wings. "It'll take too much time to fight all the spawn; Sin will be long gone if we get delayed by them."

"You just keep running," Auron said. "We'll take care of the spawn." He drew his sword and hefted it threateningly towards the creatures that were littering the plane, coming down like ticks from an overly large dog and growing legs in a disturbingly high tempo. He had never seen so many of them at one time; the grass was literally crawling with them. From everywhere sounded the hissing, clicking, fluttering noise that had haunted his dreams when he had been young, and occasionally still unnerved him when he could not place it. They were like an army of fiendish guards, trying to protect Sin like he was protecting Braska. The comparison made his lip curl. _As if I'd ever let you get him! As if Sin needs you at all! _He swiped at four creatures that had come too near, and crushed them with a single slash. _You're just pests. Weak. Revolting. Inadequate. Die!_

Next to him, Jecht gasped, and when he looked up from the cloud of pyreflies, Auron saw what had made him catch his breath. Sin. They had come to the edge of the Calm Lands, only a few hundred meters from the coast. Far, far below waves crashed against the rocks, sending up wreaths of water all the way up to the plane, misting into the three men's faces. Close to the cliffs, his head and back rising high above the land, Sin was blindly attacking the coast. There, more than a mile to the east, the land was black with spawn, swarming and buzzing like locusts.

"Oh my bloody hell…" Jecht whispered, paling a little. "I'd forgotten how big the fucking thing was." Braska nodded. Even he seemed a little disconcerted now, but there was still humour in his voice as he said, "It's big, yes. But you might be even bigger." He smirked at the other man's raised eyebrow. "Your Aeon, Jecht. I will call upon it shortly. You will be my weapon. As Auron will be my shield. I will wield you, and we will be victorious." He took a deep breath and managed a grin. "I've always wanted to say that."

"My Lord…"

"I know, Auron. We should hurry." He looked at him, piercing him with his gaze. "You will take care of Yuna, won't you?"

"As I promised," Auron said earnestly. "She'll be safe in Besaid. But first, I'll be your shield."

"And I'll be yer weapon," Jecht added gruffly. "Hey Auron. You'll take care of Tidus too, right?" The other only nodded, and raised his sword to his chin, as in salute. "Okay. Well. This is it, right?" He thrust his hands in his pockets, kept them there for a few seconds, pulled them out again and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's the right thing to do.

Braska, I'm ready when you are."

"Right. First, let's draw his attention, shall we?" Butting his staff firmly into the ground, he began to chant—a completely different kind of chanting than he had done before. This song was dark and powerful, and threatening.

"What…?" Jecht sputtered.

"Ultima." said Auron curtly. "guaranteed to draw its attention. If it doesn't kill it, but then I guess I shouldn't get your hopes up." He fell silent as an explosion of light and darkness, mixed with vivid greens and reds lit the air, and squared his shoulders when a low, rumbling roar caused the ground to tremble and the spawn to squeal and flicker. "Bingo." Braska whisked around and grabbed the blitzer by the arm.

"Jecht! Your turn! He's coming right for us!"

"What should I do?"

"Close your eyes."

"What? Now?!"

"Close your eyes!"

"Okay, okay!" He squeezed his eyes shut, and noticed that the rumbling and the noise were much worse when you could not see where it originated. "Now what?"

"Surrender." 

_What?_ Jecht meant to demand, but at the same moment Braska had begun to pray again, and some part in his body immediately knew what to do. 

_Surrender._

The tenseness smoothed away from his face, from his body, from his very soul. 

_Surrender._

He did not feel scared anymore, or nervous, or anything. If he opened his eyes, he knew he would not see the shaking cliffs or Sin's massive body wrecking the countryside. He would see pyreflies and light, and a never-ending space filled with water and falls and rainbows. The Farplane.

Beneath Jecht's bare feet the grass shook and the earth bucked, but Jecht stood very still, as if he were standing on something more solid than Spira's ground. Slowly, the edges of his figure were beginning to fade.

"Come on, Jecht…" Braska panted, clasping his staff in white fingers. "Give in…" 

"He's changing," Auron whispered, and then suddenly the other man opened his eyes, and they were white and bright as if a candle burned behind each socket.

"I will." He said, with finality, and then he was gone.

In the Dome, deep beneath Zanarkand's stadium, the room where Yunalesca kept her collection of Aeon statues pulsed with a blinding light. It threw the statues in a sharp relief, shadows playing over their still faces appeared to make their stony lips move. In one of the niches, Jecht's body, the only body still made of flesh, jerked spasmodically before stiffening against the wall. It opened its eyes—the pupils dark and unseeing, already misted over with death, and moved its lips.

"I will." The body whispered, and with a sound like a sigh, turned into stone.

_Where is he?_ Auron searched feverishly for his friend as he clubbed several spawns to death. _Where'd he go?_ Braska, too, looked around searchingly, one hand pressed against his chest, the other grasping the staff.

"He must be here…I felt him give himself to me." Sin, properly alerted by the summoning, threw itself against the coast. Both men staggered, Auron grabbed one of his Summoner's sleeves to keep him upright.

"Braska!"

"I'm fine! I don't understand! Where…" His eyes widened, and a strange, elated smile slowly grew on his face. "Ooohh…"

"Braska?" A thunderbolt crashed down from the sky, bathing the Summoner and his Guardian in light so white it obliterated all colour—no, not thunder, but light, pure Farplane light, brighter than they had ever seen. And then another shape loomed over them, a creature made of fire and light and smoke; a being that had to be the largest Aeon on Spira.

"Jecht…?" Auron whispered. All around him, spawn disintegrated in the light, which was just as well, for he was so impressed he'd forgotten to fight them. Braska was standing in the stream of light, hair and robes flapping in a breeze of summoning power, staff raised high in his hands, face turned up to where the Aeon had landed. It was still vaguely humanoid, but gigantic and so vivid it hurt to look at it.

"Help us." Braska screamed. He was quivering, his fair skin flushed as if he were having a fever. His eyes, too, just like on Mount Gagazet, were too bright and too wild, but now the effect was a hundred times stronger. As he moved his left arm, so did the Aeon's and when he brought it down, the Aeon's fist plunged deep into the earth. It pulled back, drawing with it an enormous sword. Before it was completely out of the ground, though, Sin charged, and hit the Aeon in the side. Jecht hardly reacted, but Braska bent double with a cry and fell to his knees.

"Braska!"

"Get me…up! Up!" Auron knew better than to protest, and hoisted the man to his feet, keeping one hand on his back to lend him some support. A thin line of red ran down Braska's chin, but he didn't even notice.

"Go on!" he shouted breathlessly to the creature up high, "Kill it! You know what to do!"

So it seemed. The Aeon drew the point of its sword out of the ground, then quickly as lightning attacked and slashed at Sin's left fin with a movement Auron absentmindedly recognised as one of his own attacks. _It **is** Jecht. That's his move. Are Aeons still aware of their human origin, then? _He was started out of his reminisces when Sin retaliated once more, and Braska stumbled backwards against his chest. 

"For Yevon's…sake…" he wheezed, and began to cough. The light around him had dimmed, now, and in the stark but otherwise ordinary light the blood on his lips was very red. "I need to…"

"I'll keep you up." Auron said, and he did so.

The creature that was Sin and the Aeon that was Jecht fought for hours. Their battle formed a spectacle that was like a movie, had Auron and Braska recognised it as one. Somehow, as they were standing there beneath the two behemoths, it was as if it were not real, as if the storm of power raging around them was of another world, and they were looking at that world through glass. If it hadn't been for the trembling ground and the pieces of debris flying in their faces and ripping their clothes, Auron would have thought he was looking at a wizard's game, not a battle that would decide the future of Spira. _The future of Braska._ He tightened his arms around the man's slender, all but limp figure, pressed his face against the side of his head, feeling the heat the Summoning generated in his body, acting as his feet and legs as Braska's own had ceased to function. He was still looking up, praying soundlessly, eyes still bright but unpleasantly empty. Once in a while he would cough up blood, but just as methodically Auron would offer his sleeve, and on red the blood did not show. Much.

A deafening shriek told them that Sin had been injured again, and a spray of salty water hit Braska's hot forehead.

"Now," he whispered to his Aeon. "He's vulnerable now. That was his last…fin. He can't… go anywhere now. You must…finish him now." He shook his head in reply to a silent remark. "No. Go ahead. This is…this might be…our only chance…" And then he smiled, weakly wiping a red stain from his mouth. "Thank you. Me too." He let his head roll back to look Auron in the face. "This is the end."

"My Lord?"

"Sin…is finished. Almost. Just keep me up…for a little while longer…if you can."

"Always." said Auron, and he and his Summoner watched as Jecht raised his sword and sliced Sin in pieces.

At first, nothing really happened. In the middle of Jecht's final offensive, Sin simply stopped moving, shaking only when the sword hacked into its head. It just floated there, half in the air, half in the water, losing narrow tendrils of substance, that bursts into pyreflies when they drifted away from its body. At one moment the sky was dark with threads, tangling around each other and dissipating in the air. The Aeon dealt Sin one final blow, then looked down.

Braska nodded.

"You can…put me down now," he whispered gently.

"The Aeon's still there," Auron said, lowering him carefully to the ground. Braska smiled.

"I already…let him go." And at that moment the remains of the light shining down on him winked out. The Summoner drew in a quivering breath, closed his eyes.

"It's over."

BOOM

There was a sound like an underground explosion, and suddenly Sin's body seemed to fissure, light shining out between the cracks. Auron flung himself over his Summoner, just as an enormous blast flattened everything to the ground. The rocks cracked and splintered, flew into the air and crashed into the ground, ripping out whole patches of grass and earth. A part of the cliffs caved in and disappeared into the boiling sea, where towering waves leapt up to the sun and drenched Auron to the skin. He felt something hit his back, his head and his left arm, and a stream of something that was too warm to be water dripped down his neck, but he bit his lip and tried to form a dome with his body over the helpless shape of his friend. _I'm your shield. I'm your shield. I will protect you._

When the violence finally stopped, he ventured a look around him, and a low moan escaped his throat. The edge of the cliffs, which had been a few hundred metres away from them when Braska had begun to Summon, now began perhaps fifteen feet away from where they were lying. No grass or earth covered the ground; all he could see was blackened rock, and far below, the furious water. For the rest, it was quiet. But even though the warrior monk in him wanted to go and see whether there was still something left of Sin, there were some matters that had be finished first. He drew himself up, gritting his teeth as a wave of dizziness made his head spin, and touched the pale face of the man lying beneath him.

"Braska?" For a moment he thought that he had already lost him, but then the dark blue lashes fluttered, and Braska opened his eyes.

"Auron?" They were dark, now, almost the same colour as the sea, with only the smallest sparkle of light, and there was preciously little life in them left. Braska's voice was little more than a whisper.

"Yes," Auron said softly, getting to his knees to give the other man space to breathe. "I'm here." He leaned over him to let his friend look at him, showing him that he was still alive. A rain of red pattered down on Braska's face, and he wiped it away, cursing softly. One of the rocks that hit him had to have made a rather deep hole in his head—but now was not the time to think about trivial things like that. Braska, however, chose to differ.

"You're…hurt." He made an attempt to sit up but blanched before he had even lifted his head from the ground. Auron all but pushed him down.

"Don't tire yourself!" he cried anxiously.

"Auron."

"I will be fine. It's just a flesh wound."

"Did we…win?" There was so much hope in that voice, so much happiness waiting to come out. The Guardian closed his eyes against the tears he did not want to cry, and felt them sting in his throat.

"Yes." He said hoarsely, "We won. Sin is gone."

"And Jecht?" He looked up, and thought that he could see someone, precariously near the edge of the cliff. The figure—yes, it had to be Jecht, although it was man-sized now, he recognised the way it moved—was pushing itself to its knees.

"I think he's over there. He looks fine, if a bit bruised and battered."

"Good." He raised his eyes to the sky, a faint but warm smile curling the corners of his mouth. "He should be…fine. But you…"

"I'm…"

"Fine. Of course you are." He laughed, breathlessly and soundlessly, and licked a small drop of blood away from his lower lip with his tongue. "Well, at least…you will be…when I have…healed you."

"Braska, please, spare your strength." 

"Could you…get me in a sitting position? It's…cold…on the ground." Still shaking his head, Auron gathered him against him, loosening his coat to wrap it around him, not caring about the blood running down his arm, his temple and his back, or the mud that covered both of them.

Keep him warm, keep him safe. He'll be all right. As long as I keep him warm—as long as I keep him talking!

"Auron." Reflexively he tightened his arms around the slender figure. _Don't speak._

"Yes, my Lord?"

"Look at me." He did so. For the first time it struck him that Braska was older than him, not because of his exhausted, white face but because he was so clearly grown up, and no longer had the glow of power and animation that usually surrounded him. And at that moment he also realised that no matter what he did, he would not be able to save him.

"Let me…heal you." His eyes burned, then overflowed. He blinked quickly, but with his arms supporting his friend, he could not scrub his tears away.

"It will be the last thing…I do."

"_Hey! Auron!"_ a faint voice called from a distance. "_Braska!_"

The Summoner touched his knuckles to his Guardian's hand, and Auron took his hand in his own, laid it against the wound in the side of his head. Braska's eyebrows danced briefly, as if he were laughing, but his face was serious now, and the light in his eyes was dimming quickly.

"Jecht will be here…soon. You'll have to help him. I…I don't know what should happen now. I'm…sorry."

"Braska."

"I'll heal you." Braska whispered firmly, pressing his fingers against Auron's temple with as much force as he could muster—which was barely enough to make his fingers twitch. "Because…that is what I always…always…wanted to do. Take your pain away."

"Wait. Braska, wait, there's so much I still need to tell you…" But by now the last flicker of light had left his eyes, and Auron halted in mid-sentence. "I…" He swallowed. "Goodbye, my friend." Then he closed his eyes and let the blue light of healing obscure his tears.

"_Braska! Auron!"_

When he looked up again, he was aware of three things, which slowly revealed itself to him. The first thing was, that his body felt whole and relatively sound. The second was that something inside him was aching so badly it oppressed the beating of his heart. The third was that someone, someone familiar, was shouting in his ear and shaking his shoulder.

"What?" he croaked, looking up from Braska's body. "What do you want?" Jecht was kneeling close by, his arms wrapped around his chest.

"Is he dead?" He himself looked much the worse for wear, and for a moment Auron was able to push his grief aside and converse.

"Yes. He's…dead. Only a moment ago."

"Fuck." Auron blinked.

"What?"

"Fuck!"

"What the hell are you…"

"It's not over yet, Auron!" Jecht jumped up so swiftly it was not humanly possible. He seemed solid now, but there was still something about him that was different, as if something very basic had been stripped away—_something like his humanity._

"What do you mean? Sin is dead, I saw him explode…" Jecht shook his head, wildly. 

"No. No, it isn't dead, not completely. There's something…I can feel it, something—there it is!" He pointed at the sky, and Auron thought he saw something fly, some kind of dark fiend, but very small.

"It's nothing," he said, turning back to Braska. The headband had dented sometime during the fight, and the blue cowl was ripped to shreds. _You would hate to see yourself like this._ He gently removed the band, pulled down the remnants of the cowl, freeing the long blue hair. It was almost like that first time they fought together, in Djosé…

"_Auron_!" A high note of panic crept into Jecht's voice. "Will you look at that thing!"

"What about it? It's just some kind of fiend. I'm sure it's hardly dangerous. I don't see…"

"It's more than that." He took hold of Auron's shoulders with both hands and pulled him to his feet. "Much more. Hell, it's…it scares me to death, that thing. It's something…I know that thing."

"Yes? Then what is it?" But disregarding his irritation, he observed the small bulb closely. It looked a bit like a short-legged squid, and was about the size of his own head. As he was watching it, something in its movements made him feel uncomfortable, and suddenly he understood Jecht's fear. There was something about it, something threatening, something unholy…Next to him, Jecht sucked in his breath.

"I know what it is." He said, with finality. The thing swerved towards him, and he ducked behind Auron's back, pulling him along, away from it.

"What is it?"

"It's Sin."

"What?"

"That thing, it's…that's what I fought, when I was an Aeon. But not the outer thing, the big armour, not Sin as you know it…" he buried his fingers into Auron's flesh, making the other man grunt in pain. "I know! Yunalesca…she said something about this. Yevon?"

"What?" It loomed closer still, swirling above their heads in steadily diminishing circles. Jecht began to talk even faster.

"Yunalesca, when she changed me, she told me things about…damn, I can't remember!

Something about Yevon, no Yu Yevon, possessing the Aeon. That was what turned them into Sin."

"But Yu Yevon is Yevon!' Auron cried. "It makes no sense!"

"We have to fight it!"

"I can fight!" He scooped his sword up from the ground, slashed at the creature as it came in his reach

Another. I need another. Another shield. Another shield. 

thoughts flooded his mind in a wave, and he wavered on his feet before Jecht pulled him straight.

And at the same time he knew that Yunalesca had, indeed, known. And still she had sent them on their way. Jecht and he fought the small dark fiend as best as they could, but he knew that they would lose, because this creature did not want them dead.

I need another shield.

Despite all his strength, he could not stop his god regaining his armour. He knew he had lost the moment Jecht stopped fighting, but that did not matter. All he could do now was fight, and never mind that it was senseless. Only when Jecht turned his eyes on him and shook his head, he dropped the point of his sword into the ground and stood, panting, shaking his head in denial.

"No. I won't let it take you that easily." Jecht looked away from him, unblinking, and shook his head. Like when Braska had started praying to his fayth, his eyes had changed, but this time they were as black as obsidian.

"He already has me. I think…I think it's summoning my Aeon."

"No!" Auron screamed. He lashed out at Yu Yevon, but it deftly avoided his attack, and drifted up a little higher, where he could not hit it.

"No. NO! I won't have it! I need you, damn it! I need you to protect Yuna for me, while I go looking for you son…" He grasped one of his friend's arms, or made to, for when he touched him he felt a shock, and his hand passed right through him. "Jecht!"

"It's summoning me." His face crumpled; he raised his hands to his face, pressed his fingers hard against his temples. "Oh hell, it hurts…it hurts…stop it…help me!"

"I can't!"

"Make it stop!" 

"I can't!" Auron screamed, and then the small black bulb fell down from the sky, landing in the middle of Jecht's chest, where it melted into his flesh and disappeared. Jecht's hands flew from his head to his chest, and he doubled up, screaming in agony.

"Jecht! JECHT!" But again he was fading, even though he resisted his summoning with all his might.

"Jecht!" _He's next. _Auron realised with a dread so terrible he thought he might faint of it, _He is the next Sin. Jecht will be Sin! And she knew, she knew!_

"_Jecht!_"

But he was all alone on the destroyed part of the Calm Lands, and far away over the sea, a mass of black threads was spinning into a smaller, sleeker version of the creature he had seen explode only half an hour ago. 

"Jecht!' he ran to the edge of the coast, cupping his hands around his mouth to make his voice carry. "Fight it! Fight it!" And then, with a glance at the dead body of his best friend lying only a few meters away, "I will make her undo this! I will get you out of there! Do you hear me! Don't give up! Jecht!"

There was no answer. The whole place was silent, not even a bird could be heard. Auron dropped his arms to his side, hands balled to fists. He felt so furious, so _betrayed_, that he was beyond tears now.

"I will make you pay for this," he hissed. "I WILL make you pay!"

To be continued…

So there! Sin's dead, Yunalesca's gonna get her ass kicked. Or not : ) Next chapter, Auron travels to Zanarkand and curses destroyed spheres. 

Please leave a review, if you haven't done so yet. Please. They so help me write! Oh, and one time soon I'll edit the whole thing, write up some spaces in the story that I know that are there but I was unable to fill before. Right now I need to get the story out of my head on paper as soon as possible, later I will prettify it and make it more readable. See ya next time!


	9. Days Gone By 9 UNALESCA

9.

Auron met the first Chocobo Knight almost an hour after he had started to walk. He had Braska slung half over his shoulder, half carried him in his arms. The Knight was one of the eager girls, and her bird skidded to a halt in front of him, making her fall off and land at his feet on her hands and feet.

"Sir Auron!" She scrambled up, looked at him, looked at the lifeless man in his arms. "Is…is lord Braska…"

"The new Calm has started," Auron interrupted her tonelessly. "The Summoner has fulfilled his task." 

"A Calm…" Her eyes were uncertain, even though a tentative smile widened her mouth. His impassive face seemed to disconcert her, and she heaved a sigh of relief when three other Knights came running.

"Calli! Jits! Brana! Lord Braska's defeated Sin!" An Indian howling rose into the air, but it died down quickly when Auron began to walk again.

"Sir Auron! Wait!"

 The Guardian kept walking.

"Sir Auron!" The girl and one of the boys, who had dismounted, ran after him. "Sir, wait! You don't have to walk."

"I don't mind." The boy touched his shoulder, and he flinched, making the boy flinch in turn.

"…think he's in some kind of shock…"

"…shouldn't walk…Lord Braska…" Their whispered conversation beat against his ears like a drum.

_Yes,_ he thought, _I might be in shock. And I shouldn't walk all the way back. It's undignified. A Summoner should not be brought in like a sack of potatoes._ A bark of mirthless laughter constricted his throat, and he halted in his tracks.

"You're right," he said. "I shouldn't walk. I need to get to the agency as soon as possible. And Braska…Can you take Lord Braska, boy?" The boy overlooked being called a boy, and nodded gravely.

"Do you want to ride my Chocobo, sir?" a girl asked. "I can pair up with Brana." Auron smiled, but by the looks of it, he didn't succeed very well.

"I'm not…that good with Chocobos." He said. "Can your bird carry the both of us?" She flushed, then looked down, and grew even redder as she noticed how flushed she was.

"Of…of course, Sir Auron." Another wry smile twisted Auron's mouth.

_Girl, if you'd only knew how extremely hilarious this shyness of yours is…I'm not some hero you should idolise. You're not some girl I'd ever even contemplate flirting with. All you are is the boss of this bird, and I need you to get to some place._ But he said nothing, helped the boy hoist Braska's body in front of him on the back of his Chocobo, and clambered up behind the girl on the other bird, loosely wrapping his arms around her slender waist. Her breath was coming fast, and her voice was high and breathless as she urged her mount to a walk.

The Chocobos feathered body was soft and warm as it moved beneath him, the scent of it—a bit like that of chickens, a bit like that of a horse—strangely reassuring. With every step, the sphere coins he had taken from Braska's satchel clinked in his pocket.

_Zanarkand__.__ I hope the sphere's still working. I'll have a talk with her, make her tell me what exactly she thought she was doing. If necessary, I'll kill her. The Final Aeon is a lie, anyway. And when I come back, I'll tell Yuna how her father died a hero. That he died, but…oh, Braska…How can I tell her? How can I tell that sweet little thing that you'll never come back? _

"Sir Auron…" the girl whimpered, and he released the crushing grip he had on her waist.

"I'm sorry. I…I was…thinking."

"Are you alright?" one of the other girls asked. "You look awfully pale. Calli knows some spells…"

"No. I'm fine." _As fine as you can be, when your whole world has come tumbling down…_He looked up as the rest of the Crusaders galloped into view, and a dozen voices asked and screamed and called…and he heard his own voice explaining how Braska had died, and that Sin had been defeated, and that there would be a Calm. Banshu, riding an enormous pale-yellow Chocobo male, studied him, a grave expression on his face.

"So it's finished, then." Auron nodded.

"Yes. For now."

"Where is the other Guardian? Jecht?"

"Gone." The Crusader opened his mouth to ask more, but Auron looked away and bowed his head. "Gone." he whispered, and no more questions interrupted his thoughts for a long while.

They halted in front of the agency, and Auron blinked. The building looked as if a giant had stamped his foot just behind the back of the place, and sent it flying into the air before it crashed back into the ground. Long cracks ran down from the split roof, and one of the walls had fallen inwards completely.

"Is this…what happened? Is this the effect of our fight?" Banshu inclined his head, smiling grimly.

"Oh yes. We were all just saddling up when the ground began to shake, and the sky in the west grew black as soot. We almost lost the Chocobos, they went completely wild. When I left this place, that roof had just come down." He kicked against a piece of debris. "The rest of it must've happened while we were out looking for you."

"You were looking for me?" The elder man nodded.

"I saw the Guardians of the previous Summoner who instituted the Calm. He'd had three, and one of them was a good friend of mine. They were all broken, both in mind and body. We never found the third one, and the other two were raving like lunatics. One of them is still alive, but he remembers nothing because of the toxin. Best thing ever happened to him. The other one committed suicide. Drowned himself." He briefly touched Auron's shoulder. "I didn't want to see that happen to you, or the other man."

"I'm fine." 

"Of course you are." He shook his head. "I know how much Braska, Lord Braska, Yevon bless his soul," a sign of prayer, "meant to you. I can only tell you one thing. It will pass. The pain of it. In time, it will become easier to bear." 

"I know."  Auron said, not listening. He slid down from his chocobo, nodded at the girl, and caught his friend's body as the boy gently lowered it to the ground. He was still limp, still slightly warm. Just as if he were only sleeping, or…

_No. he's dead. Braska is gone._

A new shock of pain flashed through his chest, so badly that he had to squeeze his eyes shut and clench his teeth together to keep from moaning aloud. Braska was gone…

"He has to be buried. Get a memorial," said Banshu. He rested his hand on Auron's shoulder. "And you…need rest. A drink, perhaps?"

"No." It would be too painful to drink, with those memories of Braska and Jecht so vivid in his head. "No, I don't want anything to drink. I…" He dug his hands in his pockets, encountered several small, hard fiches. "I need to do something else."

But then he looked at Braska's body again, and bit his lip. The man deserved more than a simple burial. But to arrange that ceremony…it may have been the task he was still alive for, but…

The ache in his chest intensified for a second, then throbbed and diminished again. Auron knew for certain that he wouldn't be able to arrange anything for Braska. Not with this mixture of seething anger against Yunalesca and the agony of his best friend's death coiling in his heart. Not if he wanted to keep his sanity. And yet…How could he leave him like this?

"I can take care of him," Banshu suggested softly. "I know those who can preserve him, and I'm sure that all temples want to help to give him a fitting burial ceremony."

Auron nodded gratefully.

"Thank you. It is…I find it impossible…What I mean to say is, I can't…" he grimaced. "I can't bury him. I simply _can't_. And I need to…see someone. First." At the mere thought of Yunalesca's red-lipped smile his stomach cramped with fury, and he closed his eyes again. Banshu's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

"Whatever you want, Sir Auron."

Auron smiled, a smile so bitter that the elder man winced. Sir Auron. Braska's Guardian. And then to think that there were people who were Guardian to more than one Summoner. How could they manage that without ending up in a blubbering heap when their Summoner died? Or weren't they their Summoner's friends? How could you guard someone if you didn't love him or her as much as life itself?

"Sir Auron?" 

He shook himself.

"Yes. I should go."

"Go where, if I may ask?"

"You may," said Auron, and fished the small Zanarkand chip out of his pocket. "But I won't tell you. Does the sphere still work?" 

Not waiting for a reply, he strode towards the machina, tapped lightly on the flickering bulb. It was still functioning, but not all too well; he'd seen a sphere break-down before, and this one was very close. Travelling it would be dangerous, but then, what did he care about danger now?

" I don't think…" Banshu began, but Auron held up his hand to silence him.

"Good bye, Banshu. If all goes well I will be back soon enough to attend the…funeral. If not…no, I will return. I must tell Yuna, I promised my Lord."

"Auron, if you…"

"Farewell, Banshu," Auron said abruptly, dropped his coin in the dented sphere slot and spirited away.

He was in Luca only long enough to choose his destination. Zanarkand was still on the list, just as Jecht had said. He never even thought about the possible fact that the sphere wouldn't take him there, or that he might crash; he simply selected the name and pressed the button. If the pull on his body was stronger, the ride more hitchy, he didn't notice. As he opened his eyes again and saw the rubble lying around him, his lips twitched into another one of his bitter half-smiles, but it had less to do with pleasure than satisfaction at coming here without any more delay.

Auron wasted no time with preparations—what kind of preparations could he possibly make when facing Yunalesca? She was holy, a creature of pyreflies. How could he even hurt her, if she refused to answer? Nevertheless, as he entered the stadium, he had his hand curled loosely around his sword, wishing, secretly, that she would give him reason to use it on her. The fury he'd felt in the Calm lands was gone now, at this moment he felt nothing at all.

He did not need to go through any trials. Everything was still the same as they had left it, more than a week ago. If he looked closely, he could even see the traces of their footsteps in the dust; new dust had settled in and half-obscured them, but they were still visible. Footsteps of the past.

_I hadn't noticed that the past crept up so fast_, Auron thought. _That the 'now' could turn into days gone by so quickly_. 

He shook his head to clear it, but as he ascended the stairs to Yunalesca's great hall, it seemed to him that all the pyreflies from the dead had gathered in his skull, their hum drowning out the sound of his own thoughts. And when he saw her, standing there as if nothing at all had happened, as beautiful and terrible and serene as the week before, it was as if he looked at a statue.

"Yunalesca." 

At first, she did not acquiescent his presence, but he knew she had heard him, for her body stiffened slightly, and her head inclined a little, as if she waited for him to go away. Auron smiled to himself, and kept standing where he stood, as motionless as she was, and just as patient.

In the end, she turned around and gave him a small nod.

"Guardian."

"Not anymore." 

Her ruby lips parted in a satisfied smile.

"Yes. He is gone."

And even though he knew that she meant Sin and not Braska, the frozen calm in Auron's head dissipated as if she'd fired an arrow into his brains.

"Why?!" he screamed, unable to control himself. "Why didn't you tell us? What happened to Jecht—why did he have to become the final Aeon? I saw what happened to him…Sin… Whatever lived inside Sin…_ate_ him."

Yunalesca smiled gently.

"Sin is eternal." She stated, rather like a Yevon disciple. "Every aeon that defeats it becomes Sin it its place...And thus is Sin reborn."

Auron shook his head, threw out his arms.

" But…Where is the sense in all this? Braska," the man's name kindled the flame of anger that was steadily growing hotter, "Braska believed in Yevon's teachings and died for them!                 And Jecht believed in Braska and gave his life for him! Was it all for _nothing_? Did Braska die only so Jecht could become the next Sin? Why didn't you tell us that that would happen?? _Why_????

"Tell me! I need to know!"

The ghostly woman in front of him shrugged.

"They chose to die..." she said beatifically, and red flared in front of Auron's eyes, "because they had hope. They gave others hope. Who wouldn't want to die for that?" 

He couldn't even remember drawing his sword. All he knew that he wanted to kill, kill this dreadful cheating holy bitch, kill the murderess of his best friends, this fiend, this…

He never made it within striking distance. She gathered a mass of energy in her hand and casually flung it into his stomach. Auron went flying backwards, landed with a thud on the ground, several yards away from her.  His sword flew out of his hand and skidded away.

"Go home, Guardian," she said. "Celebrate your Calm. Find me next time Sin surfaces."

Auron barked a breathless laugh. His left arm was numb, and something in his side felt torn, and there was blood in his mouth, but he pushed himself to his knees, to his feet, stumbled to where his sword was lying.

"Oh no," he whispered hoarsely. "No, I don't think so. I didn't come here to be told to go home. You…" he wiped wetness from his chin. His hand stung as he did so. "You killed Braska…and Jecht…I won't let you kill other Summoners as well. Not like this. Not like this!"

Yunalesca raised her eyebrows.

"And how, my dear Guardian, do you propose to accomplish that? Surely you won't be as stupid as to attack me?" 

"Watch and learn, bitch." Auron snarled, and launched at her once more. This time he didn't let her energy bolt throw him back; he ducked it, and slashed, and managed to cut through her defence; but her next attack caught him full in the face, and half his vision exploded in red light before turning irrevocably black. Pain as he had never known before crashed through his body, seared his face, but even as his body fell, he held on to consciousness with a stubbornness that Jecht, would he have seen it, would have called almost obscene. 

_No. no.__ I won't be beaten like this. I will not let her win that easily. _

Pyreflies swirled above him, and as he desperately tried to keep his eyes open (though one didn't want to open at all), Yunalesca's face appeared in front of him. Her eyes shone so bright they all but blinded him; her whole figure seemed to be tinged with blood.

"I will remember you," she said, touching his right cheek with her fingers—a new pain bloomed into existence—"Don't you worry about that, Guardian. Your death will not have been for nothing. I will be more careful in the future."

Auron tried to raise his arm, to grab one of her shining tresses, but she twisted away and his arm fell uselessly to the ground.

"No…" he whispered. 'Wait…I'm not…finished with you…yet…"

"Yes, you are," Yunalesca said from far away. "_You_ are finished, Guardian." A tinkering laugh surfaced in her voice. "Let me know when you need sending. I will see what I can do for you then…" 

*

It was some time before he regained consciousness. Yunalesca was gone, but the pyreflies clung to his body with disturbing attachment. He attempted to get up, but even breathing made red bursts explode in front of his one seeing eye. As he felt the right side of his face, he met a thick crust of dried and half-dried blood. His right eye was either gone or damaged; he couldn't see anything with it, and the pain made him dizzy. There was another pain in his chest and in his side, the kind of pain that betrayed broken and crushed bones, and internal injuries that would most likely kill him if he didn't get treated soon.

"Not bloody likely," he muttered to himself. Even his vocal cords hurt. He had brought four healing potions with him, and now drank one of the three that had survived the fight. It lessened the worst of the agony, but it still took him more than half an hour to crawl to his sword sticking out of the stone floor, and use it to prop himself up. Pulling it out of the ground proved impossible, but then, Auron figured, he didn't think he'd survive any attack. Even a bunny could kill him now, only by stamping its foot on the ground.

_But if I die, who will take care of Yuna? Who will find Tidus_?

He did not want to go, not while Yunalesca was still alive, or rather, undead, but he was not so fanatic that he did not know that trying to fight her in his current state was madness. No, he had to go back to Besaid, speak to Yuna, and heal, and then…

As he dragged himself to the sphere, a thick trail of blood pattered on the ground, like a red path from the Dome. It seemed impossible to him that he could lose so much blood so quickly, and still live, but he was too stubborn to give up. Although he almost did so when he found out that the sphere was dead. But Yuna's face, mismatched eyes twinkling in her plain, sweet, smiling face made him grit his teeth and move on, stumbling and falling, from the city and into the mountains.

The next week was a red-cloaked haze to Auron. He only remembered that it stormed all the time, and that it was cold, so very cold indeed. If he slept at all, he did it in snatches, curled up in a rift of snow he had to dig himself out of when he woke up. He did not have any food, but since he was not hungry at all, he didn't think much about that either. The first two days after his defeat he started by drinking potions; after that, they were finished and he thought no more about it. When he had the energy, he cast spells on himself to boost his speed and endurance. He ripped up most of his coat to bandage his wounds, and as long as he did not try to think, he could actually move quite efficiently. Pain, he had found out long ago, came in gradations. When you passed a certain line, you could distance yourself from it, and retreat into your own mind. That was what he did, that whole terrible journey down Mount Gagazet: retreat into himself and relive the memories he found there.

The sphere in the Ronso Village worked. With the Storming Season raging about the Mountain, all the Ronso were inside, huddling close to the hearth, no doubt. As Auron stumbled into their village, he somehow missed the unfortunate guard who had to keep eye on the road from the mountain, and he had made it all the way to the sphere before someone noticed him. Inorhe's blue snout appeared before one of the lit windows, gazing out, and his yellow eyes widened in alarm as he spotted Auron half-lying on the foot of the sphere, counting his sphere-coins with stiffly frozen fingers. He ran out, meaning to stop him and ask him what he was doing here, but before he had reached them, Auron had found the coin he had been looking for, dropped it into the slot and disappeared.

The sphere spat him out just outside Bevelle, right in front of the Inn where they had met Kimahri. As Auron stood there, swaying, not realising yet that he was not in Besaid, as he had thought he would be, his vision doubling and wavering, he saw something large and grey-blue rising from the grass.

_Fiend_…Auron thought hazily, and reached for a sword that was gone. Then the blue thing barked something that sounded suspiciously like his own name and came racing to him. It walked on hands and feet, like a gigantic cat.

_Sin jumped up and played the fiddle_, Auron thought, _it **is** Kimahri_. He wanted to stick up his hand and greet him, but his arm refused to move.

"Aurrron…" the Ronso maowed. His pupils were drawn to slits, the feral face drawn in a frown of concern. Auron blinked his seeing eye. The other eye was closed, and burned; sometimes he thought it burned all the way through his head.

"Ki…" The moment he began to speak his lungs gave up. He began to cough, and even though he tried to hold his ribs together with the one arm that functioned, he could actually feel them pierce his lungs.

_No! I can't die here, not now! I need to see Yuna, and Tidus_.

"Kimahri…" he choked, and fell on one knee. The Ronso skidded to a stop at his feet, just in time to catch him as he began to crumple. "Need to…go…Yuna…Besaid…Braska's daughter…"

He felt one rough paw touch his burning face, and then the surprisingly soft fur of Kimahri's chest as he pressed him against him.

"Yuna…" Auron whispered. There was a dull roaring in his ears, that seemed to grow louder and louder. Perhaps it was Kimahri purring. He did not think so, though. "I need…to go to…Besaid."

"Later." Said the Ronso. And when he picked the Guardian up, Auron slumped in his arms in a dead faint.


End file.
